Russian stocks fall on ruble contraction, negative environment

MOSCOW, Nov 13 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks eased on Monday as negative environment favored no purchases, while the RTS index was undermined by a falling ruble, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.08% to 2,167.63 and the RTS decreased 0.69% to 1,148.79.

“In the second half of the day, the segment of risky assets was under a moderate pressure from a deepening tension around the political situation in the U.K. and from the uncertainty around the U.S. tax reform, while investors were nervous waiting for key economic reports and statements of heads of the world’s central banks later in the week,” Sergei Melnikov, chief analyst at Forex broker Global FX, said.

The Brent oil price rose 0.094% to U.S. $63.58 per barrel as of 6.08 p.m. Moscow time.

“The U.S. dollar–denominated RTS index slid into the red zone during the day under the pressure from an intra-day weakening of the ruble against the North American currency. Still we saw a fake upward movement at the beginning of the day, and the indices hit their 9-month records following a spike in purchases in heavy weighing shares of Sberbank. But the attempt failed, and the negative external background did not favor purchases in Russian shares,” Vitaly Manzhos, a senior risk manager at investment company Nord Capital, said.

The ruble lost 22 kopecks to 59.44 rubles per U.S. dollar as of 6.19 p.m. Moscow time.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that the Russian metals companies grew after China’s Hebei Province said that it plans to cut steel production capacities by 20 million tonnes until 2020 to 200 million tonnes.

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) rose 0.94% to 46.30 rubles, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) grew 0.63% to 131.65 rubles, Severstal gained 1.42% to 897 rubles.

Kochetkov also said that shares of aluminum giant UC RUSAL rose 0.34% to 40.89 rubles thanks to strong financial performance and expectations that demand for aluminum will rise 5.9% this year even after contraction of capacities in China. RUSAL said its net profit calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards jumped 46.4% on the year in January–September.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.50	216.61	11.139
Gazprom	+0.62	133.32	3.927
Severstal	+1.42	897.00	3.106
Lukoil	-0.55	3326.00	2.954
Magnit	-0.40	7146.00	1.935

(59.2808 rubles – U.S. $1)

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