Russian stocks fall on weak oil, ruble, dull expectations

MOSCOW, Jul 20 (PRIME) --The Russian stock market fell on the back of the ruble and Brent oil weakening,  news that Mark Mobius will close its investment fund focusing on the country and hedge-funds’ expectations that the ruble will fall against the U.S. dollar further, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 1.41% to 1,626.76 and the RTS decreased 1.29% to 900.65.

The MICEX fell on the back of weak oil, which decreased to below U.S. $56.8 per barrel of Brent by the end of the trading session, while the decrease of the RTS was sped up by the ruble weakening to about 56.9 against the U.S. dollar, Timur Nigmatullin, an analyst at Finam, said.

The Russian stock market was also depressed by a decision to close Templeton Russia and East European Fund, managed by Mark Mobius’ Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust, Zerich Capital deputy CEO Andrei Vernikov said. Mobius said a year ago that he believes investment in Russian stocks is still profitable despite Russian tensions with the West, Vernikov said.

Bloomberg reported that hedge-funds started placing bets on the ruble weakening against the  dollar for the first time in more than seven months, and expectations of the ruble weakening affect demand for the ruble-denominated assets in line with the central bank’s cut of the key rate and currency interventions, Vasily Tanurkov, deputy head of stock market analysis department at Veles Capital, said.

Russia’s weak macroeconomic statistics, published by the Federal State Statistics Service recently, was still among factors causing investors’ depressed mood, as the country’s industrial output fell 4.8%, retail sales decreased 9.4% and real incomes fell 3.5% on the year in June, Nigmatullin said.

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) fell 4.43% in a technical correction after a 2-week growth, which was likely to be partially caused by the company’s weak operating results for January–June, Vitaly Manzhos, senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.88	74.10	6.674
Gazprom	-1.27	141.78	2.821
Lukoil	-1.51	2428.20	1.435
Norilsk Nickel	-1.50	9393.00	1.400
Surgutneftegas pref	-0.58	33.40	1.261

(56.8423 rubles – U.S. $1)

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