Russian stocks increase on dividend, other corporate news

MOSCOW, Jun 7 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell in the first half of the day on Tuesday but later clawed back the losses to close higher on the dividend and other good corporate news, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew by 0.41% to 2,291.62, and the RTS index added 0.17% to 1,180.47.

"The Russian stock market managed to gain at the end of the day on the dividend news and in spite of an external background that is still negative," Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

Bashneft and Samolet Group grew 8.14% and 7.49% respectively after the boards of directors recommended paying dividends for 2021 and January–March 2022 respectively. RussNeft (+2.79%) may pay dividends only on preferred shares for 2021, while the shareholders of Aeroflot (+4.94%) approved issuance of up to 5.4 billion shares. Retailer Magnit increased 4.65% after the market share quota after merger and acquisition deals was raised to 35% from 25%, Kozhukhova said.

Kozhukhova said that that the European trading floors eased with the Euro Stoxx 50 index losing about 1% on a report about German factory orders decline by 2.7% on the month in April. In the U.S., the S&P 500 futures fell by 0.8%.

The oil market trend was also moderately negative, as the nearest Brent and WTI futures lost up to 0.5% after approaching the resistance level of U.S. $121 and $120 per barrel respectively.

Otkritie Research’s senior analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that the Russian metals and mining sector was dragged down by the news that the board of directors of steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) (+1.92%) recommended against dividend payment for 2021.

The gold producers decreased as well having lost access to the European market, and ended up being the outsiders.

Global-Trans was among the market leaders (+2.41%) after announcing new logistic routes from the Far East to raise imports, Kochetkov said. VK lost 2.71% on a report about the death of First Deputy CEO Vladimir Gabrielyan and Director for Purchases Sergei Merzlyakov.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+0.5	297.99	4.650
Sberbank	-0.39	118.32	2.627
Novatek	+2.91	814.6	2.527
Lukoil	+0.49	3959.5	1.782
Severstal	+0.08	717.4	1.207

(61.1094 rubles – U.S. $1)

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