Russian stocks fall on Brent, ruble, Ukrainian conflict rumors

MOSCOW, Mar 10 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks fell on Tuesday pushed down by market rumors that a ceasefire in Ukraine was very fragile and about to be broken and along with a lower Brent price and the ruble, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 3.65% to 1,665.38 and the RTS decreased 6.43% to 845.36.

“The main factor for position closing was a rapid fall of oil quotations, which have failed to consolidate above $60 per barrel and fell by over $2.5 recently,” Andrei Dirgin, head of Alfa-Forex’ analytical department, said.

The Brent price fell after the U.S. had reported a 2.9 billion barrel increase in stocks last week, Sofya Kirsanova, analyst at Raiffeisen Capital, said.

“The market did not even price in such factors as the escalation of a conflict in Libya that threatens supplies from 11 fields and a decrease in the number of drilling rigs by 335 in the U.S. last week,” Dirgin said.

Rumors that the ceasefire in Ukraine was unsustainable also raised concern of Russian investors, Kirsanova said.

A central bank report that its foreign exchange and gold reserves fell 4.2% to $360.2 in February, hit ruble-denominated stocks, while the news of a consumer price inflation of 6.2% in February, also depressed the market, Sergei Alin, analyst at Nord capital, said.

The market expects the central bank to decrease the key rate to 14% on Friday that will support investment but also speed up inflation that may worsen the situation for ruble-denominated assets, he said.

The stock market may remain volatile due to market rumors that Europe may consider anti-Russian sanctions on Sunday, Alin said.

ALROSA, which was included in the FTSE Emerging Markets index, rose 3.86% to 78,000 rubles after it had said it would pay dividends for 2014, Kirsanova said.

Megafon rose 1.02% to 987 rubles in anticipation of the company’s report for October–December 2014 under International Financial Reporting Standards on Wednesday, the analyst said.

Uraikali, which rose due to strong financial results for 2014, fell 6.40% to 169 rubles.

Kamaz, which established joint ventures with Austria’s Palfinger AG, a maker of cargo handling systems, rose 1.41% to 39.65 rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-4.71	69.80	10.576
Gazprom	-2.68	148.05	5.255
Lukoil	-3.61	2699.00	4.288
Norilsk Nickel	-5.14	10425.00	2.379
Magnit	-4.64	10820.00	2.202

(59.9938 rubles – U.S. $1)

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