Russian stocks grow on oil price rise, cbank key rate cut hopes

MOSCOW, Jul 21 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market increased on Tuesday on the back of oil price growth and hopes that the central bank will reduce the key rate at the next meeting, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 0.84% to 2,825.71, and the RTS Index rose 1.93% to 1,259.72.

"The Russian market has again been given a reason for positive revaluation. Expectations that the central bank will go as far as cutting the key rate have strengthened, and this is the reason for revaluation of the risk and yield of shares. Europe managed to agree on a seven-year budget and a fund for recovery after the COVID-19," Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said.

Raiffeisenbank said that the market expects either a 0.25 percentage point, or a 0.5 percentage point Russian key rate reduction, the opinions split by half.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that the oil market rose as Brent and WTI added about 3% on the back of a higher investor risk appetite.

Kochetkov said that RusHydro fell 0.4% after CEO Nikolai Shulginov offered to raise the investments in 2020 by 171 billion rubles and President Vladimir Putin agreed.

The analyst said that retail companies looked solid on support from the key rate cut expectations and the market hoped for consumer lending growth.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.02	216.07	15.758
Gazprom	-0.55	187.33	8.035
Lukoil	+0.67	4970	7.374
Norilsk Nickel	+0.03	18400	6.319
Inter RAO	+0.29	5.69	5.250

(71.9628 – U.S. $1)

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