Russian stocks fall on fears of US key rate hike, no oil deal

MOSCOW, Aug 29 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks were under pressure on Monday from fears of a U.S. key rate hike and the lack of investor optimism about a possible agreement of oil producing countries to freeze output, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.33% to 1,986.72 and the RTS decreased 1.17% to 962.08.

“External conditions are negative. Markets are still taking a lead from Friday’s speech of U.S. Fed’s (Federal Reserve System) Head Janet Yellen. On the one hand, she said nothing extraordinary, she has not talked about particular terms of possible tightening. On the other hand, she said that the number of grounds to increase the rate is growing,” Forex Club analyst Irina Rogova said.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was sped up by the ruble weakening against the U.S. dollar amid lower oil prices, the expert said.

Finam analyst Timur Nigmatullin said that the Russian stock market was put under pressure by E.U. shares’ dynamics, while Euro Stoxx 50 fell.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said investor hopes that oil producers will manage to agree on an oil output freeze are fading away, another negative factor for Russian stocks.

Metals and mining giant Mechel increased 5.14% to 63.62 rubles per common share and 8.88% to 47.8 rubles per preferred share after posting an 8.3 billion ruble net profit for January–June against a net loss for the same period of 2015.

Uncut diamond mining giant ALROSA, whose net profit doubled to 90 billion rubles in January–June, rose 1.16% to 73.85 rubles.

Construction company Mostotrest went up 2.33% to 87.7 rubles, while its net profit for January–June soared almost fivefold to 476 million rubles.

Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO), whose net profit surged more than sevenfold on the year to U.S. $58 million in January–June, rose 1.72% to 1.77 rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1,17	143,55	6,536
Gazprom	0,00	136,20	1,415
Lukoil	-1,14	2990,50	1,353
Norilsk Nickel	0,45	9640,00	1,032
Surgutneftegas pref	1,45	32,08	0,705

(64.7380 rubles – U.S. $1)

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