Russian stocks fall on weak oil, profit taking in thin trade

MOSCOW, Jul 17 (PRIME) --Russian stocks fell on Friday pushed down by weakening oil prices and profit taking ahead of a weekend in thin summer trade, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.15% to 1,650.08 and the RTS decreased 0.80% to 912.44.

“First, market players do not like to leave open positions during the weekend, preferring to take profits. Second, oil prices which failed to consolidate above U.S. $57 per barrel of Brent, resumed their fall. On the whole there is no reason for our indices’ growth at all,” Igor Kovalyov, analyst at InstaForex, said.

Russian stocks’ volatility increased on the back of the period of dividend cut-offs, which is about to end, Timur Nigmatullin, analyst at Finam, said.

Hydropower giant RusHydro rose 0.21% to 0.5359 rubles on the news that it plans to raise an 85 billion ruble financing from VTB Bank, Veles Capital said in a research note.

On June 20, the Russian stock market may follow weakening oil quotations, analysts said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.77	75.52	6.643
Gazprom	-0.42	143.60	3.055
Lukoil	+0.15	2465.40	1.856
Surgutneftegas pref	-0.01	33.595	1.333
Norilsk Nickel	-0.67	9536.00	1.297

(56.9504 rubles – U.S. $1)

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