Russian stocks fall on Friday on lack of drivers, local stories

MOSCOW, Sep 18 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks contracted on Friday as the external background did not provide enough drivers for the national market to grow, while investors were still pricing in local corporate stories, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.67% to 2,951.79 and the RTS decreased 1.18% to 1,228.64.

“The MOEX Russia and the RTS Index remained in the red zone at the end of the trade on Friday as they did not receive enough drivers for growth from abroad,” Veles Capital’s analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The moods of players on foreign bourses were mainly pessimistic on Friday, which only exacerbated sales in Russian shares. The short-term situation on stock markets may be seen as uncertain as it is hard for buyers to find new positive drivers, while there are also no serious reasons for sales, Kozhukhova said.

 “The Russian market is pricing in its domestic agenda. Shares of metals companies are once again mostly in the red zone after an attempt to rebound, so Severstal and NLMK (Novolipetsk Steel) are falling. Shares of Tatneft, Lukoil, and Rosneft are also under pressure as oil companies may lose some tax exemptions for hard-to-recover oil,” Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker for global research, said.

Severstal and NLMK lost 0.65% to 983.40 rubles and 0.46% to 167.52 rubles, respectively, while Tatneft fell by 1.49% to 509.70 rubles, Lukoil shrank by 2.07% to 4,694.50 rubles, and Rosneft decreased by 0.99% to 378.75 rubles.

Kochetkov also said that shares of precious metals producer Polymetal International dove by 1.82% to 1,739.90 rubles after ICT Group sold a 4% stake in the company for U.S. $443 million through accelerated bookbuilding.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Lukoil	-2.07	4694.50	13.350
Sberbank	-1.06	229.00	11.678
Gazprom	-1.25	181.60	7.783
Norilsk Nickel	-0.11	19348.00	4.892
Inter RAO	-0.64	5.86	4.856

(75.1941 rubles – U.S. $1)

End