Russian stocks fall on coronavirus woes, oil price, geopolitics

MOSCOW, Nov 19 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell on Friday with the coronavirus concerns being the major driver for the national market, while the negative flow of geopolitical news only added fuel to the fire, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 1.89% to 4,016.47 and the RTS decreased 2.17% to 1,723.74.

“The favorable external background before the start of trade triggered a rebound attempt, but a switch of oil prices into a deep plunge together with the Friday factor when some market players close their positions prior to the weekend produced the deepest contraction of the MOEX Russia Index since August,” Alexei Golovinov, leading analyst at Promsvyazbank, said.

The Brent oil price fell by 2.388% to U.S. $79.30 per barrel as of 5.52 p.m. Moscow time according to the ICE exchange.

Dmitry Babin, stock market expert at BCS World of Investment, said that the oil price decreased due to a return of concerns of a worsening of the pandemic in the large consumer states.

“Global investors show more and more concern about new outbreaks of the coronavirus cases in the regions that should be safe from the point of view of vaccination. This creates a threat that the pandemic problem becomes chronic. Coupled with the fact that monetary policies are becoming more and more strict due to high inflation, this creates risks of a new global economic crisis,” Babin said.

Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst at Otkritie Research, said that the geopolitical news also played their part in the decrease of the Russian stock market.

“The U.S. congress drafts a resolution bill on non-recognition of Vladimir Putin as president during the 2024 elections. NATO makes statements about placement of nuclear weapons east of Germany. Austria announces national quarantine only for the non-vaccinated, which can also be characterized as such news,” Kochetkov said.

Golovinov also said that the shares of grocery retailer Magnit grew by 0.19% to 5,957 rubles in a rebound after Thursday’s loss.

Veles capital analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that the shares of gold producer Seligdar lost 5.26% to 63 rubles after the company on the news that its management does not plan to recommend payment of dividends for January–September, Kozhukhova said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-2.48	336.98	30.541
Sberbank	-2.94	327.02	20.636
Magnit	+0.19	5957.00	13.939
Surgutneftegas	-0.48	41.105	10.877
Lukoil	-2.57	6664.50	8.604

(72.6022 rubles – U.S. $1)

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