Russian stocks fall as strong ruble drags exporters down

MOSCOW, Apr 10 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Friday as exporting companies weakened on a recent ruble strengthening, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.63% to 1,657.02 and RTS decreased 0.40% to 999.38.

“The MICEX index is under pressure from falling prices of exporting companies’ shares. Market players may have also priced in some decrease in oil prices and strengthening of the ruble. Considering high volatility on the crude and currency markets in the past few weeks, investors are not eager to leave open positions for the weekend,” Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam, said.

The decrease of both Russian benchmarks was also spurred by the central bank’s decision to raise the minimum interest rates at auctions for foreign currency loans and repo deals, TeleTrade’s analyst Alexander Yegorov said.

“The situation has gone too far. The ruble became overpriced instead of being underpriced. The high rate is good for consumers, but exporters suffer from it also because of falling profits from selling foreign-currency-denominated revenue,” Yegorov said.

Metals giant Norilsk Nickel outperformed the market, gaining 2.01% to 9,936 rubles, after it said it may pay 670.04 rubles per share in final dividends for 2014, increasing total dividends for the year to 106 billion rubles, up from 39.3 billion rubles in 2013.

Fertilizer maker Uralkali also looked stronger than the market and grew by 2.08% to 162 rubles after the company said it signed a contract to sell 850,000 tonnes of potash chloride to China at U.S. $315 per tonne in April–December.

Gas giant Gazprom lost 0.07% to 148 rubles, as its shares failed to break through a 150 ruble mark even after it said that its managing board proposed to the board of directors set 2014 dividends at 7.2 rubles per share, or 90.2% of the company’s RAS net profit for the year.

Below are the MICEX’ five most active stocks on Friday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.69	71.50	10.258
Gazprom	-0.07	148.00	8.265
Norilsk Nickel	+2.01	9936.00	4.314
Lukoil	-2.69	2634.90	3.878
VTB	-0.15	0.05870	2.671

(52.5424 rubles – U.S. $1)

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