Russian stocks fall on low oil price, Iran comments, weak ruble

MOSCOW, Feb 24 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Wednesday amid low oil prices, which were pushed down by Iran’s statements, and a downbeat mood on the E.U. and U.S. trading floors, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.38% to 1,797.27 and the RTS decreased 3.12% to 737.73.

“The profit taking was caused by a bearish mood, which prevailed on Western and American trading floors from the beginning of this week on the back of falling oil prices,” Raiffeisen Capital analyst Sofya Kirsanova said.

“Although OPEC countries and Russia tried to agree with all market participants to freeze oil production at the level of January, Iran openly laughed at it. Saudi Arabia said that it ‘would rather sell its oil for free than give its market share to Iran’,” the analyst said.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that the Russian stock market was also put under pressure by technical factors.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble weakening.

Uncut diamond mining giant ALROSA, which is likely to be privatized, increased 1.35% to 71.3 rubles after announcing plans to increase dividends twofold in order to attract potential buyers, Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said.

Oil producer Bashneft, another company for privatization, rose 0.5% to 2,505 rubles, the analyst said.

Oil major Rosneft, which plans to purchase 23.3% in Petromonagas, a joint venture with Venezuela’s PDVSA for production of ultra-heavy oil, fell 1.16% to 281.7 rubles, because investors believe that the deal, which is estimated at about U.S. $500 million, is risky taking into account the current state of the Venezuelan economy, Kovalyov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.07	102.10	9.065
Gazprom	-1.97	137.15	3.813
Lukoil	-2.30	2550.00	3.143
Magnit	-1.69	10475.00	1.864
Norilsk Nickel	0.00	8750.00	1.759

(77.1326 rubles – U.S. $1)

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