Russian stocks fall on lower foreign bourses, oil price

MOSCOW, Jan 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market contracted on Friday as falling foreign stock and commodity markets left the market with no other choice than to sell, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 2.18% to 3,439.25 and the RTS decreased 3.36% to 1,401.88.

“The Russian indices have contracted deeply since the beginning of the day due to a negative external background,” Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global analysis at Otkritie Research, said.

“Interestingly enough, the background was unfavorable due to financial, not geopolitical reasons. The indices in Shanghai and Tokyo closed 0.9% lower, though their earlier losses were more significant. The oil price also fell today, as well as the prices for metals.”

Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at financial supermarket Banki.ru, said that the oil prices were the major unfavorable factor for the Russian market -- the Brent oil price lost more than 1.5% and fell below U.S. $87 per barrel.

“In spite of a slight easing of geopolitical risks, the external background restricted purchases in our shares,” Zvarich said.

Veles Capital analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken were good at first glance because there was news that the U.S. was ready to provide Russia with a written response to its security proposals. Nevertheless, the general uncertainty and tensions remain, she said.

Kochetkov also said that X5 Retail Group was among the leaders rising by 1.28% to 1,779 rubles on the news that its sales grew by 11.4% on the year to 2.2 trillion rubles in 2021.

Kozhukhvoa said that gold producer Polyus grew by 3.52% to 12,349.50 as they caught up with another gold producer, Polymetal International, that rose in the previous sessions. Polyus priced in the Thursday growth of the gold price to $1,847 per ounce, the highest for the past several weeks, she said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-3.05	246.85	69.777
Gazprom	+0.98	313.47	34.337
Lukoil	+0.64	6471.00	11.899
Norilsk Nickel	-0.48	22192.00	9.007
Yandex	-0.92	3635.40	8.811

(76.4408 rubles – U.S. $1)