Russian stocks fall on lack of drivers, ruble fall

MOSCOW, Dec 1 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market contracted on Friday as it failed to find any drivers for growth, while the ruble’s depreciation hurt the RTS Index additionally, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.74% to 3,142.29 and the RTS decreased 1.77% to 1,095.28.

“The Russian stock indices stayed in the red zone, but the ruble indicator tried to climb back from its lowest of the day … The RTS Index fell as it experienced pressure from the ruble,” Veles Capital’s analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The foreign stock floors were optimistic because the business activity data in the producing sectors of Europe and China outperformed expectations. Now the investors are waiting for a similar result from the U.S., and the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank would have to soften their stance a little for the markets to continue growing in December, she said.

“The MOEX Russia Index and the RTS Index were under the downward pressure today because they failed to find any significant corporate or general market growth drivers. A season of closure of the interim dividend payments is to start soon in Russia, and it may restrict short-term purchases even more,” Kozhukhova said.

She also said that the preferred shares of oil company Bashneft increased by 1.28% to 1,741 rubles mainly because of the dividend expectations.

Otkritie Research’s expert Andrei Kochetkov also said that no significant corporate events happened in Russia on Friday.

“The ruble weakened again. The U.S. dollar’s rate exceeded 90 rubles, while the euro’s rate grew above 98 rubles. One can call it some sort of a technical rebound after several attempts to continue rising, but the ruble failed to achieve anything over the past week,” Kochetkov said.

The shares of telecom company Rostelecom lost 8.46% to 74.68 rubles and of gold producer Seligdar contracted by 4.02% to 64.26 rubles because of dividend cut-offs, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.87	275.09	7.696
Mechel	-1.75	287.31	3.688
Yandex	-3.73	2429.20	3.505
Magnit	+0.97	6415.50	2.676
Lukoil	-0.41	7209.50	2.553

(88.5819 rubles – U.S. $1)

End