Russian stocks fall on Greek woes, week ruble, Brent price

MOSCOW, Jul 1 (PRIME) --Russian stocks fell on Wednesday depressed by a Greek default, the ruble weakening and low oil prices, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.90% to 1,639.70 and the RTS decreased 0.99% to 930.66.

“Russian stock indices still tend to sag at the end of the day. The bulk of the negative news, caused by Greece’s technical default, is already over, but the situation is developing,” Igor Kovalyov, analyst at InstaForex, said.

The ruble-denominated MICEX is falling on the back of weakening oil, which decreased to below $63 per barrel of Brent by the end of the trading session. But the fall of the index is limited by the weak ruble and the news that Russia’s PMI calculated by HSBC rose by 48.7 points on the month in June, according to Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble weakening above 55.5 against the U.S. dollar by the end of the trading.

Metals producer Norilsk Nickel fell 3% to 9,215 rubles as prices for industrial metals decreased, Vitaly Manzhos, senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said, adding that news about a possible splitting of a stake held by Norilsk Nckel’s CEO under a suit from his ex-wife sped up the fall.

Metals and mining company Mechel rose 2.18% to 71.6 rubles, as the company said it could settle debt to Sberbank out of court, the analyst said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.87	71.00	7.270
Norilsk Nickel	-3.00	9215.00	3.076
Gazprom	-0.24	145.50	2.363
VTB	-2.29	0.07719	1.740
Lukoil	-1.65	2429.20	1.687

(55.8413 rubles – U.S. $1)

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