Russian stocks fall on weak oil price, Chinese woes

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (PRIME) -- The Russian stocks fell on Monday battered by Chinese woes and the falling Brent price; the ruble depreciation against the U.S. dollar limited the fall of the MICEX and sped up the fall of the RTS index, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.75% to 1,634.14 and the RTS decreased 4.94% to 724.73.

“This August was not an exception and undoubtedly was the worst month for investors this year. All global stock markets are hot with fever due to the Chinese woes for a second week in a row. Almost all emerging markets stock indices decreased on the year,” Vasily Oleinik, analyst at ITinvest, said.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange fell 8.49% and the Brent price decreased to below $43.5 per barrel by the end of the session.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble weakening to about 71 against the dollar by the closing bell, according to Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam.

The fall of the ruble-denominated MICEX was limited by the ruble weakening, because investors purchased shares of non-oil exporters, Vasily Tanurkov, analyst at Veles Capital.Tanurkov said.

Investor havens included metals companies Norilsk Nickel and Severstal, which added 1.54% and 0.65% to 10,215 and 723.8 rubles, respectively, and fertilizer producer Uralkali, which jumped 3.17% to 203.5 rubles.

Oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, whose net profit surged over 800 on the year to 48.7 billion rubles in January–June, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards, increased 2.23% to 165,200 rubles per preferred share.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.90	68.53	15.802
Gazprom	-3.52	135.35	7.045
Lukoil	-2.69	2347.00	5.354
Norilsk Nickel	+1.54	10215.00	4.443
Magnit	-2.17	11603.00	2.797

(68.1216 rubles – U.S. $1)

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