Russian stocks fall sharply hurt by global panic over coronavirus

MOSCOW, Feb 28 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market was hurt by numerous global and internal factors to fall sharply following international stock and commodity exchanges on Friday, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index lost 4.48% to 2,785.08 and the RTS sagged 6.24% to 1,299.69.

“We can see a double impact on the Russia stock market: apart from falling oil prices and European and U.S. indices, there is an acute geopolitical situation in Syria and a conflict with Turkey, which left no chance to either the ruble, or the stock market,” Director for strategy of investment company Finam Yaroslav Kabakov said.

Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that investors’ sentiment on global stock and commodity exchanges remained extremely pessimistic due to the lack of encouraging news about the spread of coronavirus.

Kabakov also said that the MOEX Russia Index and the RTS index slid by over 7% sometime in the day, but managed to restore by a half by the end of the trading session, which however adds no hope for stabilization of the situation yet.

The past week witnessed a panic on the global stock exchanges with most benchmarks diving from record highs seen earlier this year to the levels of September-October 2019, wiping off half-year growth results, Kabakov also said.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’s five most active stocks on Friday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-6.83	202.65	34.849
Sberbank	-3.92	233.36	29.250
Lukoil	-5.01	5699.5	17.933
Norilsk Nickel	-4.65	20250	13.081
Rosneft	-4.42	403.4	7.668

(65.6097 rubles – U.S. $1)

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