Russian stocks flat as oil prices increase, China foregoes stimuli

MOSCOW, Sep 8 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed neutrally on Wednesday on the back of an oil price rise, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew by 0.18% to 4,017.37, and the RTS indexby  0.15% to 1,726.53.

"The domestic market continued correction in the first half of the day. The MOEX Russia Index fell to 3,984.64 for a moment,” Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said.

“But in conditions of a stable inflow of new investors to the financial market, such decreases are usually compensated very fast. The index went up by the middle of regular session ignoring any negative signals present on the market."

He said that the oil prices were suddenly supported by protests in Libya. Besides, analysts expect a reduction of U.S. oil reserves after the Ida hurricane.

Dmitry Babin, stock market expert at BCS World Investment, said that risky assets were under pressure after refusal of the Chinese central bank to introduce aggressive stimuli of the economy.

According to Kochetkov, the metals sector was the gain leader with RUSAL soaring on the back of record aluminum prices.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-0.51	326.06	17.495
Sberbank	+1.64	331.3	14.825
RUSAL	+6.1	66.75	6.932
Lukoil	+1.1	6349	6.547
Norilsk Nickel	-0.81	24178	5.167

(73.1909 – U.S. $1)

End %%mk/jst%%