Russian stocks fall on possibility of German sanctions

MOSCOW, Sep 2 (PRIME) – The stocks fell on Wednesday on fears of new anti-Russian sanctions that the west may impose over alleged poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.62% to 2,956.50 and the RTS decreased 3.11% to 1,234.82.

“The MOEX Russia Index and the RTS Index fell at the end of trade on the statements of German representatives about poisoning of Alexei Navalny and about possible introduction of anti-Russian sanctions,” Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said.

Jurgen Hardt, speaker for foreign affairs of the parliamentary faction of Germany's Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) said that the faction saw evidence of poisoning of Navalny sufficient to prove involvement of the Russian government in production of the substance, and that it does not rule out slapping sanctions over that.

Valery Yemelyanov, analyst at investment company Freedom Finance, said that the Russian market was under pressure pushing the RTS index to its lowest since the beginning of August. The MOEX Russia outperformed the RTS Index as weakening of the ruble, which fell by more than 2% against the U.S. dollar and the euro, supported the index, he said.

Kozhukhova also said that gold producers Polymetal International and Petropavlovsk Plc were weaker than the market and lost 3.67% to 1,974 rubles and 3.76% to 35.415 rubles, respectively, as the gold prices decreased by 1.6%.

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said that children goods retailer Detsky Mir continued to fall by XX% to XX rubles on the news that multi-industry holding Sistema and the Russia–China Investment Fund were selling their stakes in the company.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-2.57	221.80	16.575
Norilsk Nickel	+0.45	20020.00	12.564
Yandex	-1.26	4969.80	10.868
Gazprom	-1.20	182.01	8.856
Lukoil	-2.10	4845.00	7.256

(73.5849 rubles – U.S. $1)

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