Russian stocks fall on oil price slump, unfavorable environment

MOSCOW, Feb 28 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks contracted on Wednesday as local traders were pricing in a Tuesday slump of oil prices against a downward correction of the world’s indices, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 1.93% to 2,296.80 and the RTS decreased 1.94% to 1,285.47.

“In the first half of the day, the MOEX Russia Index priced in the previous day’s slump of oil prices and sales at the global stock floors triggered by higher tensions around the possibility of a U.S. rates growth,” Yevgeniya Abramovich, head of the currency risks analysis department as Swiss brokerage house Dukascopy Bank SA, said.

Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said that the sales may have also been caused by a fresh outflow of money from Russia-dedicated funds, pushing the Russian blue chips to a position among the loss leaders.

Metals giant Norilsk Nickel lost XX% to XX rubles, while gas giant Gazprom fell by XX% to XX rubles, oil company Lukoil by XX% to XX rubles, retailer Magnit by XX% to XX rubles, and common shares of top bank Sberbank by XX% to XX rubles.

“The outflow of funds may have happened due to a general decrease in risk appetite among the global investors after China posted weaker February PMIs (Purchasing Managers’ Index) than analysts expected. The country’s Manufacturing PMI amounted to 50.3 compared to 51.1 the market expected, while Non-Manufacturing PMI stood at 54.4 instead of 55,” Kirsanova said.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that Gazprom Neft outperformed the market and lost only 1.05% to 283.90 rubles on strong financial results for 2017.

National air carrier Aeroflot raised its passenger traffic by 7.7% on the year in January, and the company’s shares rose 1.69% to 141.45 rubles, Kochetkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-2.09	272.40	14.555
Gazprom	-2.28	143.16	5.211
Norilsk Nickel	-3.39	11159.00	3.910
Lukoil	-1.62	3776.50	3.006
VTB	-1.93	0.05276	2.985

(55.6717 rubles – U.S. $1)

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