Russian stocks grow on positive foreign background, higher ruble

MOSCOW, May 6 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market grew on Tuesday propped up by rising U.S. futures, oil prices, the strengthening ruble and no major bad news from Ukraine, analysts said.

The MICEX index rose 1.56% to 1,318.57 and RTS increased 2.58% to 1,172.91

“Russian indices opened higher today on a rising ruble and have been growing throughout the whole trading session, but a low trading volume means that these positive trend is unstable. We can see this increase as one of the possibilities to cut long positions before a long weekend of May 9-11,” Ivan Fomenko, director of Absolut Bank’s trust management department, said.

The negative effect of a lower DJ and S&P 500 was neutralized a slight increase in the Brent oil price to $107.5 per barrel.

“Despite the positive Tuesday, we think the Moscow Exchange won’t hold above a 1,320 mark. The Ukrainian instability is still of significant importance to the index, and the resolution of the conflict is still uncertain,” Alexander Kostykov, analyst at Veles Capital, said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+2.93	74.10	9.525
Gazprom	+2.77	129.49	5.644
VTB	+3.13	0.03991	2.743
Lukoil	+0.70	1878.90	1.751
Rosneft	+1.43	224.05	1.423

(35.8381 rubles — U.S. $1)

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