Russian stocks fall on US GDP report, profit taking

MOSCOW, Apr 28 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Thursday after the U.S. said its gross domestic product (GDP) decreased and investors started to take profit before the long holidays, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 1.68% to 2,383.66, and the RTS index decreased 0.68% to 1,041.91.

"The Russian stock market continued to grow in the first half of the day. The IT sector remained in the top-5 gain leaders. But some of the leaders of the last two days were also among the outsiders," Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global analysis at Otkritie Research, said.

In the evening, the Russian indices erased the gains after the U.S. released the GDP figures for January–March with a surprising 1.4% annual fall, Freedom Finance said.

Vladimir Solovyov from Promsvyazbank said that the Russian investors may want to take profit before the long May holidays.

Kochetkov said that the oil prices fell on the back of a decrease of China's demand and the deteriorating outlook for the global economy.

Overbought VK Group slid 6.48% in the wake of publishing a weak financial report, Kochetkov said. The developers increased on expectations that the new beneficial mortgage terms will be applied by banks already from Sunday.

TCS Group soared on the news that the stake of founder Oleg Tinkov in the group will be purchased by Interros.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+0.16	237.53	16.701
Sberbank	-5.54	123.85	16.007
Lukoil	-3.71	4381	4.186
TCS Group	+7.14	2700	3.425
Yandex	-1.58	1721	2.231

(72.8764 rubles – U.S. $1)

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