Russian stocks grow on positive external background

MOSCOW, Jan 24 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks grew on Friday following the key Western bourses, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 0.16% to 3,146.20 and the RTS decreased 0.23% to 1,599.82.

“Russia’s major stock indices the MOEX Russia Index and the RTS Index demonstrated uneven growth as compared with previous closing. In the first few minutes of trade, they grew significantly thanks to the positive external background, but the local bulls lacked confidence in order to restore an aggressive upward drive,” Vitaly Manzhos, senior risk manager at Algo Capital, said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that the growth could have been higher, but contraction of oil prices prevented that.

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that Russian gas giant Gazprom lost 0.56% to 237.95 rubles as investors are concerned with the company’s problems with construction of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline, growth of the debt burden, and unfavorable dynamics of sales due to a warm winter in Europe.

Manzhos said that the power sector outperformed the market as mid-term interest in power companies is connected to expected changes in the law on the power industry that would allow companies to keep profits gained through improvement of efficiency. Hydropower giant RusHydro gained 1.42% to 0.6946 rubles, state power grid holding Rosseti grew by 4.62% to 1.65 rubles, and Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy System rose 4.55% to 0.2182 rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	-0.56	237.95	16.552
Sberbank	+0.67	265.49	7.263
Magnit	+2.53	3796.00	3.876
Lukoil	+0.46	6620.00	3.364
Norilsk Nickel	+0.20	21188.00	3.292

(61.9515 rubles – U.S. $1)

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