Russian stocks grow on oil price rise, Putin–Trump meeting hopes

MOSCOW, Jul 4 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market advanced on Tuesday on the back of an oil price increase and continuing hopes that an upcoming meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump will bring positive results, while a surge of telecom shares’ prices also contributed to the overall increase, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.78% to 1,917.40 and the RTS increased 0.81% to 1,017.59.

“A price increase in telecom shares (on the news that coming into effect of the data retention law can be delayed until 2023) is favoring positive dynamics today; MegaFon and MTS, and also oil companies (Gazprom, Rosneft, Novatek),” Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said.

Under the law, connection operators and Internet services must store all phone talks, text messages, sounds, video recordings, and other electronic messages of users for six months. Mobile operators opposed the measure, saying that it can force them to spend 2.2 trillion rubles to meet the rules.

The upcoming Putin–Trump meeting is inspiring interest in Russian assets as well, she said. No official agenda of the meeting has been announced but the range of important issues is so wide that experts hope for a positive outcome of the talks, Kirsanova said.

The Brent oil price increased and the ruble was stable, which, according to Anastasia Sosnova, a leading analyst at Bank Rossiysky Capital, influenced the rise of Russian indices.

Ilya Frolov, a senior capital market analyst at Promsvyazbank, said that trading activity was low because the U.S. market was closed for the Independence Day.

Gazprom led in the oil and gas sector because of statements made after a meeting between CEO Alexei Miller and Putin, Frolov said. Strong operating results for January–June and approach of the record day added to the positive trend.

Below are the MICEX’ five most active stocks on Tuesday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.28	149.39	5.980
Gazprom	+2.39	122.73	4.592
Lukoil	+0.45	2933	1.526
ALROSA	+0.76	89.33	1.110
Rosneft	+0.91	332.4	1.007

(58.9695 rubles – U.S. $1)

End