Russian stocks fall on weak Brent, record low US jobless claims

MOSCOW, Jul 23 (PRIME) --The Russian stock market fell on Thursday as Brent oil prices remained weak on higher U.S. oil reserves and expectations of abolition of anti-Iranian sanctions, as well as on the back of a report of record low jobless claims in the U.S., analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.19% to 1,616.14 and the RTS decreased 1.92% to 884.47.

“By the end of the day the fall of our indices just accelerated. However, there are no clear-cut drivers of such dynamics: the external background is still thin and oil prices fixed quite above U.S. $56 dollars per barrel of Brent. Furthermore, the ruble does not rush to grow despite the coming peak of a tax period. The obstacle is the same as for the stock market – oil prices,” Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said.

The oil market was pressured by an unexpected increase in U.S. oil reserves released on Wednesday and expectations that anti-Iranian sanctions will be lifted soon, while the country is actively negotiating with potential investors in its oil and gas industry, Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at Finam, said.

The Russian stock market also experienced an additional pressure after the U.S. published a record low number of jobless claims, Alexander Kostyukov, an analyst at Veles Capital, said.

The domestic stock indices are likely to fall further, in particular if the dollar-denominated RTS fails to rebound to above 900 points, it may roll back to 830 points next week already, Kovalyov said.

Severstal fell 0.46% as the company reported a 20% decline in revenue for January–June, Kovalyov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-2.55	72.20	6.743
Gazprom	-1.73	138.37	2.858
Norilsk Nickel	-2.16	9119.00	2.140
Magnit	-2.40	11885.00	2.049
Lukoil	-0.10	2462.50	1.488

(57.0232 rubles – U.S. $1)

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