Russian stocks grow on rising foreign markets, oil prices

MOSCOW, Mar 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed higher on Thursday in line with the rising oil price and foreign markets, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew by 1.31% to 3,508.51, and the RTS index increased by 1.73% to 1,505.22.

Freedom Finance analyst Valery Yemelyanov said that the foreign markets and oil prices mostly grew. "All this helped the Russian market spread the shoulders as well. The RTS almost hit 1,500 and was close to a two-month high. We cannot rule out that a post-COVID peak will be updated tomorrow (the previous amounted to 1,509) in spite of the end of the week," the analyst said.

Andrei Kochetkov, lead analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said that the oil market trend remained positive because traders continued to price in approval of the U.S. economic incentives. The U.S. production grew by 10.9 million barrels per day although not all refineries opened after an Arctic storm.

Yemelyanov said that M.Video fell noticeably, by 4.06%, on the news on pricing shares below the market during a secondary placement at 725–740 rubles per security.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.15	285.48	12.181
Lukoil	+2.94	6307.5	8.856
Norilsk Nickel	+0.36	23248	8.762
Gazprom	-0.09	231.49	6.920
Rosneft	+1.22	568	5.114

(74.0393 rubles – U.S. $1)

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