Russian stocks fall on US holiday, strained relations with Turkey

MOSCOW, Nov 26 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Thursday on the back of a day-off in the U.S., falling oil prices, and Russia’s plans to introduce economic retaliation for Turkey in response to a recent jet shootdown, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.29% to 1,828.30 and the RTS decreased 0.48% to 874.66.

“Trading activity was limited due to a holiday in the U.S.,” Bank Obrazovanie’s senior analyst Vitaly Manzhos said.

Raiffeisen Capital analyst Sofya Kirsanova said the stock market had weakly reacted to the escalation of the Russia–Turkey relations, as no certain restrictive measures have been announced yet.

Nevertheless, national flagship carrier Aeroflot closed 2.74% lower on possible restriction of regular and charter flights to Turkey, Kirsanova said.

Gas giant Gazprom fell 0.55% on reports that its Turkish Stream gas pipeline project could be included into the country’s restrictive economic measures against Turkey.

The Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy Systems (FGC UES), whose net profit grew 6.6% on the year to 31.9 billion rubles in January–September, as calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), closed 0.02% lower.

Multi-industry holding Sistema rose 0.28% on reports of a 418 million ruble adjusted net profit in July–September compared with a 5.526 billion ruble net loss in the same period a year ago, as calculated under IFRS.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.87	106.48	8.669
Gazprom	-0.55	143.20	4.542
Norilsk Nickel	-0.39	9390.00	2.341
Lukoil	-0.32	2598.60	2.061
Surgutneftegas pref	-0.39	44.595	1.436

(65.4789 rubles – U.S. $1)

End