Russian stocks flat on falling oil prices, growing foreign markets

MOSCOW, May 20 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed with marginal changes on Thursday as a decline of the oil and gas sector was balanced by growing foreign markets, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 0.04% to 3,636.16, and the RTS Index increased 0.37% to 1,558.72.

"The Russian market trade started quite optimistically but then the oil and gas sector dragged the indices down," Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said.

"The MOEX Russia Index and RTS recovered from their lows at the end of the trade due to the improvement of foreign moods," Veles Capital analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

Kozhukhova said that the oil market mood was negative. The nearest Brent and WTI futures lost about 1.5% in the middle of the session, nevertheless staying above the support levels of U.S. $65 and $61.50 per barrel respectively. Iran's president said that Western states were ready to remove the sanctions against the country, which would boost global market offer by 1.0–1.5 million barrels per day, the analyst said. 

European markets were moderately growing and the U.S. stocks futures moderately falling. But the U.S. market opened in the green zone.

Kozhukhova said that Mechel's shares jumped 10.38% after the company reported a 7.9 billion ruble net profit in January–March after a net loss in the same period in 2020.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.04	297.11	16.729
Gazprom	-0.79	258.85	11.187
Lukoil	-2.36	5724	7.347
VTB	+1.35	0.04591	6.281
Polymetal	+2.11	1794	4.579

(73.6778 – U.S. $1)

End