Russian stocks flat on dividend news, profit taking

MOSCOW, Apr 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed almost flat on Friday because the mixed background sent no clear signals while investors chose to focus on the firms that pay dividends, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose by 0.08% to 2,639.95 and the RTS increased by 0.06% to 1,019.20.

“We may say that the external background was mixed on Friday. The oil prices tried to grow, while the international stock floors showed a contraction. The Russian indices fell in the first half of the day after a significant growth on Thursday, but the practice of the several previous days showed that the trend usually changes in the second half of the day,” Ivan Kapustyansky, analyst at managing company Pervaya, said.

The market was supported by the news about the prospects of dividend payments -- the shareholders of Sberbank approved payment of 25 rubles per share, or a historic record of 565 billion rubles, in dividends for 2022, Kapustyansky said.

Head of Pervaya’s department of stocks Anton Kravchenko said that Thursday’s news about Lukoil’s dividends of 438 rubles per share still supported the market.

“The Russian stock indices started the April 21 session lower because of a downward correction of oil prices, but they switched into a mixed trend around the neutral level in the second half of the day. It could be explained by profit taking prior to the weekend,” Freedom Finance Global leading analyst Natalya Milchakova said.

Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov said that fertilizer producer PhosAgro rose by 0.63% to 7,327 rubles on the news about the company’s plans to launch a facility for production of 1 million tonnes of compound nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers and more than 500,000 tonnes of diammonium phosphate until 2026.

Oil major Rosneft grew by 1.08% to 400.80 rubles because on a report by business daily Vedomosti that the company may receive the right to export liquefied natural gas from 36 Arctic fields.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.17	235.89	26.258
Lukoil	-0.41	4726.50	3.724
Gazprom	+0.35	182.38	3.363
Yandex	-0.90	2079.80	2.421
Surgutneftegas	+3.40	26.13	2.146

(81.6188 rubles – U.S. $1)

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