Russian stocks fall as US tax reform optimism fades, corp woes mount

MOSCOW, Dec 20 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Wednesday as international market players saw no new stimuli for purchases after a positive impact by U.S. tax reform expectations faded and Russian investors were worried over corporate troubles, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.72% to 2,102.97 and the RTS dropped 0.46% to 1,129.33.

Global market players were waiting for U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments concerning adoption of the tax reform in the afternoon; past expectations had been already reflected on market indices, Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said. “The Russian market has own worries: additional share issues, dividend record dates, corporate conflicts, changes in tariff and tax formation. All this has caused no optimism,” he said.

Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Freedom Finance, said that a negative dynamics of European markets was one of the factors of a sell-off in Russia.

Kochetkov said that RusHydro was sliding on news about possible issuance of additional shares, the rest of the power sector followed the negative trend.

Aeroflot remained under pressure as investors expect a significant reduction of dividends for 2017, Kochetkov said.

ALROSA grew as executives plan to return to discussion of the Mir mine development restart in July–September 2018, he said.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’ five most active stocks on Wednesday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.85	226	7.701
Gazprom	-1.09	132.5	3.180
VTB	-5.14	0.04591	2.628
Lukoil	-0.85	3373	1.816
RusHydro	-4.7	0.7165	1.608

(58.6117 rubles – U.S. $1)

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