Russian stocks fall in correction amid uncertainty on oil market

MOSCOW, Mar 9 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks corrected down on Wednesday amid uncertainty on the oil market and on a recent decision of Fitch to worsen its forecast for the country’s economy for 2016, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.39% to 1,883.00 and the RTS decreased 0.43% to 835.64.

“The uncertainty on foreign markets transmitted itself to Russian investors. A surge of oil quotations on Monday was followed by their correction, which created doubts about a further rise and influenced stocks of oil and gas companies,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

The Russian stocks indices were under pressure during the day, Irina Rogova, an analyst at Forex Club, said, adding that it can be explained by “a technical correction.”

Rating agency Fitch’s recent decision to worsen its forecast for Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) for 2016 to a 1.5% fall from a 0.5% increase projected in December, 2015 also exerted some negative influence on the Russian stock market, Kochetkov said.

“Oil quotations rise amid a falling number of U.S. drilling rigs and also in anticipation of agreements on oil production cuts, Gleb Zadoya, head of Profit Group’s analytical department, said. “But it is absolutely obvious that a lot will depend on actions of Iran and the U.S., the attitude of which towards freezing of oil production is still unclear,” he said.

Iran just started raising its oil output after sanctions were lifted, while the U.S. is likely to cut production on their own amid a decreasing number of drilling rigs, Zadoya added.

The fall of the U.S. dollar-denominated RTS was technically limited by the ruble strengthening against the dollar to about 71 by the closing bell.

“If Brent quotations manage to consolidate above U.S. $40 per barrel, the ruble will have a good chance to get closer to the level of 70 (against the dollar),” Yury Kravchenko, an analyst at Veles Capital, said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.21	108.15	7.832
Gazprom	-1.81	147.43	6.950
Lukoil	-3.38	2744.00	3.355
Norilsk Nickel	-2.04	9300.00	1.923
Rosneft	-1.66	296.00	1.814

(73.1854 rubles – U.S. $1)

End