Russian stocks grow in line with oil despite political factors

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged up in thin trading on Monday due to strong oil prices, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 2.07% to 2,148.6 and the RTS rose 2.22% to 1,144.35.

“(Russia’s major benchmarks) continued a slow steady growth thanks to improving mood on the hydrocarbon market. The Brent oil futures have managed to bounce back to return to around $63.49 per barrel, the high level of last week’s closing,” investment company Nord Capital said.

Nord Capital added that local bulls have ignored the news that U.S. President Donald Trump approved new sanctions against Russian companies over alleged violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that trading has already become thin ahead of the up-coming New Year holidays.

Multi-industry holding Sistema surged 10.96% to 9.49 rubles on the news that the court of the city of Chelyabinsk continued hearing Sistema’s and Rosneft’s appeals against a previous court decision.

State-controlled power utility Rosseti added 4.05% to 1.567 rubles after global rating agency Moody’s upgraded its corporate family ratings and respective probability of default ratings to Ba1 with a Stable outlook.

Oil company Bashneft’s preferred shares lost 9.42% to 1,399.5 rubles due to an ex-dividend gap.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+3.08%	227.69	7.756
Gazprom	+1.55%	134.65	3.044
Magnit	+1.6%	6655	2.357
Lukoil	+1.3%	3432.5	2.070
Rosneft	+1.29%	297.55	1.388

(59.2811 rubles – U.S. $1)

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