Russian stocks fall on oil price, foreign floors slump

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged down on Monday following the pessimistic sentiment on the energy market and foreign stock exchanges, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index dropped 0.48% to 2,921.18 and the RTS declined 0.39% to 1,432.81.

“The Russian stock market fell, but managed to stay above an important support. Domestic shares were discouraged by the energy market with the Brent oil price seen below U.S. $62 per barrel. Bears were also supported by dynamics of Western stock exchanges,” senior analyst at Promsvyazbank Bogdan Zvarich said.

Major European indices lost around 1.5%, and the main U.S. benchmarks Dow Jones and S&P500 decreased by 0.4% and 0.6% at the beginning of their trading session, respectively.

Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that multi-industry holding Sistema and power producer TGC-1 were among the best performers adding 2.99% and 2.92%, respectively.

Steelmaker Severstal slid 2.53% as it started to trade ex-dividend.

Gas giant Gazprom began the day higher in light of the launch of gas deliveries to China through the Sila Sibiri gas pipeline by President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, but then reversed to decrease 1.36% by the end of the day.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	254.05	-1.36	18.215
Sberbank	233.77	-0.09	6.623
Lukoil	6159.5	+0.36	5.856
Norilsk Nickel	17094	+0.28	3.668
Yandex	2620.6	-2.69	2.621

(64.0817 rubles – U.S. $1)

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