Russian stocks grow on foreign market increase, corporate news

MOSCOW, Aug 8 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged up on Monday thanks to a better external background and the delay non-residents’ arrival to the stock section, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 1.66% to 2,088.40 and the RTS increased 1.05% to 1,083.52.

“The Russian stock market finished trading with a rise trying to recover from August 5’s losses thanks to the delay of non-residents’ arrival to the stock section of the local market, and an improving external background,” Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

Purchases prevailed on external stock exchanges as investors were hoping for signals of inflation weakening in the U.S., which can soften the Federal Reserve’s tone at the next meeting, she added.

However, the Russian market is still under geopolitical pressure and is waiting for the return of non-residents, which has been put off for an uncertain period, so it can reverse on Tuesday, she also said.

Alexei Golovinov, chief analyst at PSB Bank, said that the Russian IT sector demonstrated the best performance with online recruiting company HeadHunter, IT giant Yandex, social network VKontakte and real estate classifieds online aggregator CIAN adding more than 5%.

He added that chemical companies were also among the market leaders thanks to a sound financial report of fertilizers producer PhosAgro.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.15	123.81	6.717
Gazprom	+0.72	177.86	5.952
Yandex	+5.23	1933	1.783
Lukoil	+1.1	3720	1.340
Novatek	+3.57	1009.8	1.061

(60.3696 rubles – U.S. $1)

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