Russian stocks flat on decreasing oil price, good news in retail

MOSCOW, Jan 22 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market remained flat on Tuesday as a negative effect of falling oil prices and continuing conflicts abroad was balanced by surge in some of the sectors on corporate news, most prominently, in retail, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index closed almost flat firming by 0.02% to 2,468.73, and the RTS index fell 0.11% to 1,169.79.

“The foreign background conditioned a decline of the domestic indices. But even a decline of Brent to U.S. $61.5 per barrel has not worsened the situation on the domestic market significantly,” Andrei Kochetkov, Otkritie Broker’s analyst, said.

Investment company Finam’s expert Vasily Oleinik said that it is not old problems, such as the U.S. government shutdown and Brexit that worry investors but poor statistics from China – with fixed capital investment falling, banking risks rising and the gross domestic product (GDP) forecast decreasing.

There are also worries ahead of a China–U.S. trade meeting on January 30, Oleinik said.

Kochetkov said that retail stocks rose as inflation was lower in mid-January than forecasted by the market. Magnit and Detsky Mir (+0.54%) rose stronger than the market.

Oil companies decreased on weakening oil and negative forecasts for the global economy, Kochetkov said.

Power producers were among the market losers on media reports that the government may write off consumer debts like Chechnya court did with debts for gas, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.38	207.95	10.625
Lukoil	-0.27	5186	3.381
Gazprom	+0.13	158.5	2.975
Rosneft	-1.28	416.9	1.888
Magnit	+1.45	4200	1.792

(66.3634 rubles – U.S. $1)

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