Russian stocks fall on foreign mkts decrease, shaky oil price rise

MOSCOW, Jun 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell on Wednesday, following a negative trend prevalent on foreign markets, while a fragile oil price growth did not support Russian assets, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.38% to 1,850.81 and the RTS decreased 0.78% to 973.33.

“The foreign markets' dynamics was the main reason for sales. For instance, the key indices in Europe were losing up to 0.5% in the middle of the trade. At the same time, market players ignored the recovery of the fuel market, with Brent oil rising above U.S. $46 per barrel,” Finam analyst Bogdan Zvarich said.

“An impossibility of oil to start to recover, together with a negative external background and threats of sanctions extension gave no chance (to the Russian market) to restart growth,” InstaForex analyst Igor Kovalyov said.

Raiffeisen Capital analyst Sofya Kirsanova said that Brent futures were growing 0.4% after two days in decline, supported by data posted by the American Petroleum Institute (API), but there were no other fundamental factors to support oil prices.

She said that the MICEX lost support by a weakening ruble on Wednesday because the ruble started to recover in the evening.

Aeroflot grew 5.29% after posting strong operating figures for May, Kirsanova said.

Rosneft increased after reports that it can start paying 50% of the net profit in dividends, starting from 2017.

Kovalyov said that Sistema’s shares slid 4.14% on the back of information that a plea for cancellation of Rosneft and Bashneft’s court case against Sistema was removed from the Web site of the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Court representatives called the information an error.  

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.97	143.49	6.907
Lukoil	-1.46	2728.5	2.941
Gazprom	+0.45	117.97	2.779
Rosneft	+0.76	318.4	2.379
Norilsk Nickel	-0.25	8290	2.056

(58.5786 rubles – U.S. $1)

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