Russian stocks firm ahead of Friday’s peace talks

MOSCOW, Jan 20 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market increased ahead of Friday’s peace negotiations on Ukraine, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew by 2.30% to 3,516.02, and the RTS index increased by 2.54% to 1,450.59.

"The local market continued to demonstrate increased volatility as the geopolitical situation remains uncertain,” Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst for global analysis at Otkritie Research, said.

“Large market participants seem to be unready to restore their positions yet. U.S. President Joe Biden gave conflicting messages while threatening Russia with sanctions in case of invasion of Ukraine. Anyway, the market will wait for the news on Friday, when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken."

According to Kochetkov, the Brent price eased after reaching U.S. $89 per barrel after the American Petroleum Institute said that commercial reserves grew by 1.4 million barrels over the week ending on January 14.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that the European markets traded moderately higher as the Euro Stoxx 50 added 0.3%. The region demonstrates slight recovery, although the December German producer price inflation index were very worrying and strongly above forecasts.

In the U.S., the S&P 500 futures grew by 0.5%, she said. 

According to Kozhukhova, the Russian market increase accelerated near the end of the session amid a correction after a recent decline.

Kochetkov said that the financial sector led the market as the Moscow Exchange and TCS Group recovered by 5.86% and 6.01% respectively. In the metals sector, Polymetal (+3.02%), Severstal (+2%) and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) (+0.28%) rose.

The consumption, chemicals and petrochemicals sectors were the market outsiders. The IT technologies sector suffered from decline of OZON Holdings by 0.16%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+6.18	260	73.814
Gazprom	-0.08	318.1	36.655
Lukoil	+0.25	6510	13.477
Norilsk Nickel	+2.41	22554	9.741
Sberbank pref	+4.03	248.1	8.486

(76.8697 – U.S. $1)  

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