Russian stocks fall on Chinese woes, negative environment

MOSCOW, Oct 13 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks contracted on Thursday in line with the international trading floors on the back of investor worries about the Chinese economy, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.85% to 1,976.37 and the RTS decreased 0.80% to 987.99.

“The Russian indices traded in line with the world floors. Early in the morning, China published its trade balance data, and the country’s exports fell by 10% on the year…This statistics brought up serious concern about the condition and future of the world’s second largest economy,” Irina Rogova, an analyst at Forex Club group of companies, said.

Oil prices were of no help to the Russian market as the Brent oil price fluctuated around U.S. $51 during the day while all attempts to resume growth were not successful, Rogova said.

Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said that the sales were also supported by European floors where the main indices lost more than 1% during the day.

“The U.S. statistics provided another negative impact, as new jobless claims stood at 246,000 against expected 255,000. This fact underpinned expectations that the U.S. regulator may increase its key rate, and correspondingly led to the sales in risky assets,” Zvarich said.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said preferred shares of oil pipeline monopoly Transneft and common shares of Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP) rose 2.03% to 145,900 rubles and 1.49% to 5.79 rubles, respectively, as investors priced in the news that Transneft’s board of directors plans to consider a non-core asset spin-off program on Friday, possibly including its stake in NCSP, Manzhos said.

Steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) also grew 1.33% to 87.90 rubles due to strong operating results. The company’s consolidated sales increased 2% on the year to 12.29 million tonnes in January–September, while in July–September the company’s sales grew 7% on the quarter to 4.22 million tonnes, Manzhos said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-2.08	146.09	7.761
Gazprom	-0.43	137.47	2.076
ALROSA	-3.87	87.01	1.704
Lukoil	-1.06	3084.50	1.470
Rosneft	-1.03	359.40	1.338

(62.5892 rubles – U.S. $1)

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