Russian stocks fall on low oil price, negative environment

MOSCOW, Feb 8 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks contracted on Wednesday mainly due to lower oil prices and the absence of drivers for purchases from foreign markets, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.31% to 2,189.61 and the RTS decreased 1.23% to 1,164.65.

“The Russian stock market was in the red zone on Wednesday. The major reason for the sales were dynamics of the energy market, where the Brent oil price was locked below a U.S. $55 per barrel mark due to the impact of the American Petroleum Institute’s data on oil reserves,” Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said.

Foreign trade floors also supported sales in Russian assets, as the major European indices lost up to 0.5% by the closing bell in Russia, and U.S. indices Dow Jones and S&P 500 fell 0.3% in the first half hour of their trading session, Zvarich said.

The Brent oil price lost 0.75% to U.S. $54.64 per barrel as of 6.07 p.m. Moscow time, according to the ICE exchange.

Daniil Yegorov, head of the trade strategy department at a local office of Swiss brokerage house Dukascopy Bank SA, said that the U.S. crude oil reserves unexpectedly rose by 14 million barrels, and pushing the Brent price down to $54.5 per barrel during the day – the lowest figure for the past two weeks.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that another negative factor came from index provider MSCI, which said that it plans to cut the share of gas giant Gazprom in its Russia index due to contraction of the company’s free-float.

“Reduction of the coefficient to 0.45% from 0.5% automatically results in the share of the company in the MSCI Russia Standard index falling to 15.2% from 16.5%,” he said, adding that Gazprom lost 2.35% to 145.20 rubles on the news.

The whole Russian energy sector did not perform too well, and oil companies Rosneft, Lukoil and preferred shares of Surgutneftegas lost 2.99% to 378.05 rubles, 2.37% to 3,299 rubles and 0.83% to 35.105 rubles, respectively, Kochetkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-2.35	145.20	9.357
Sberbank	-1.31	171.20	5.720
Lukoil	-2.37	3299.00	2.961
Rosneft	-2.99	378.05	2.567
Norilsk Nickel	-0.01	10135.00	1.840

(59.1933 rubles – U.S. $1)

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