Russian stocks keep on consolidating ahead of US Fed meeting

MOSCOW, Jul 31 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market consolidated during the day with a low trading volume on Wednesday and closed insignificantly higher as investors are still waiting for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s key interest decision, which is to be announced later in the day, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 0.18% to 2,739.50 and the RTS rose 0.53% to 1,360.04.

“The Russian stock market keeps on running around in circles. Local stocks may grow slightly if the U.S. key interest rate is cut, and the domestic central bank’s soft policy may also support large purchases,” Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said.

Investors’ activity was relatively low, he added, reaching only 46 trillion rubles in the MOEX Russia Index section.

Power producer Enel Russia was among the biggest underperformers sliding 1.11% to 0.982 rubles due to a weak financial statement for January–June demonstrating a swing to a 2.1 billion rubles net loss.

State power grid holding Rosseti added 2.27% to 1.485 rubles on the news the company had tripled its net profit in January–June.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.06	233.49	11.973
Gazprom	-0.08	236.9	10.777
UWC	+2.02	408.5	9.783
Lukoil	+2.38	5226.5	6.045
Tatneft	+0.77	743.2	1.887

(63.3791 rubles – U.S. $1)

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