Russian stocks fall on lower ruble, oil, Chinese stocks

MOSCOW, Jul 27 (PRIME) --The Russian stock market fell on Monday pummeled by the falling oil, ruble and Chinese stocks and in anticipation of a U.S. and local monetary authorities meetings this week, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.67% to 1,584.92 and the RTS decreased 2.18% to 840.37.

“The continuing weakening of the ruble against the U.S. dollar puts the RTS, denominated in the foreign currency, under significant pressure,” Vitaly Manzhos, senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam, said that although shares of raw materials companies were supported by the weak ruble, the MICEX is falling mainly due to sales in the banking sector.

”The next meeting of the Fed scheduled for Tuesday, a meeting of the Russian central bank scheduled for Friday, central bank’s ruble interventions and a 8.5% fall of the Shanghai Stock Exchange also affected investors on the Russian trading floor, Nigmatullin said.

Top national lender Sberbank fell 2.80% to 68.64 rubles on the back of the ruble weakening, Manzhos said.

Oil major Lukoil decreased 2.84% to 2,398.9 rubles after the company published its financial results for January–June under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), which were below investor expectations, the analyst said.

Russian non-oil exporters rose as the oil price decreased below U.S. $54 per barrel of Brent by the closing bell, he also said.

In particular, fertilizer maker Acron rose 3.37% to 2,670 rubles, coking coal producer Raspadskaya added 2.66% to 35.55 rubles, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) went up 2.05% to 79.5 rubles, steel maker Severstal added 1.30% to 632 rubles and fertilizer producer Uralkali rose 0.65% to 147.5 rubles, Manzhos said.

Oil and gas company Surgutneftegas, whose currency reserves were estimated at $32.11 billion as of December 31, 2014, rose 2.58% to 33.60 rubles per preferred share on the background of the ruble depreciation, according to the analyst.

Shares of non-oil exporters, particularly Acron, Uralkali and PhosAgro, will remain most interesting stocks for investors on the back of the oil market fall before the Fed’s meeting and expected ruble weakening, as the central bank may decide on Friday to cut the key rate further, Alexander Kostyukov, analyst at Veles Capital, said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-2.80	68.48	14.415
Gazprom	-1.39	134.51	4.251
Lukoil	-2.84	2.3989	2.954
Norilsk Nickel	-0.03	9022.00	2.682
Magnit	+0.86	11750.00	1.286

(58.0374 rubles – U.S. $1)

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