Russian stocks grow on oil price, foreign markets rise

MOSCOW, Dec 10 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks increased on Thursday on the back of growing oil prices and foreign markets, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 1.45% to 3,258.31, and the RTS index rose 2.35% to 1,404.68.

"By the middle of trading session, the Russian stock market indices started to rise and set new highs after a small dip at the beginning," Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said.

Yekaterina Krylova at Promsvyazbank said that Brent did not continue its downward trend in spite of a significant growth of U.S. crude reserves reported by the Energy Department.

"The news about the start of vaccination in the U.K. and hopes for a quick approval of the vaccine in the U.S. have again stimulated risk appetite and neutralized weak statistics that reflected a lackluster picture of fuel demand," the analyst said. 

Kozhukhova said that the European and U.S. markets were in a moderately positive mood with the Euro Stoxx 50 adding 0.3%, S&P 500 0.1% as the U.S. is to approve vaccination with a Pfizer vaccine in a few days.  

According to Kozhukhova, Qiwi's depositary receipts dropped 21.28% after the central bank imposed restrictions on payments by Qiwi Bank to foreign trade companies and prepaid corporate cards. Qiwi was fined for 11 million rubles.

VTB shares rose 2.02% after reaching a support level of 3.70 kopecks, the analyst said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.78	281.81	19.548
Lukoil	+5.82	5315.5	11.801
Gazprom	+2.09	193.3	9.524
Norilsk Nickel	+3.8	24050	8.765
Magnit	-0.93	5334	4.681

(73.3057 rubles – U.S. $1)

End %%mk/jst%%