Russian stocks may decrease as oil prices, US stock futures fall

MOSCOW, Mar 6 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market is likely to fall at the opening on Monday on the back of an oil price and U.S. stock market futures’ drop, analysts said.

“The ultimate influence of key external factors that have a significant impact on the Russian financial market is moderately negative today at the start of the day,” Oleg Shagov, head of investment company Solid’s research department, said.

Brent oil futures are under pressure after news that the U.S. drilling activity is rising for the seventh week in a row, U.S. stock market futures are falling, as well as indicators of the European premarket. Asian markets are mixed.

Shagov said that all these factors are making for a negative background during the start of the Russian trading session.

Ilya Frolov, a senior capital market analyst at Promsvyazbank, said that developing markets are “in the phase of negative revaluation” as the U.S. Federal Reserve System is likely to raise the interest rate, while oil prices are quite inert.

Russia-dedicated indices are witnessing a net outflow amid falling estimates of state-run companies’ dividends and cooling of expectations for fast easing of Russia–U.S. relations, he said.

Shagov said that the MICEX is expected to open at 2,055 and to fluctuate at this level later in the day after closing at 2,056.89 on March 3.

Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) and Rostelecom are expected to publish financial reports and this may influence some quotations on the Russian market, Shagov said.

Sergei Kozlovsky, head of the analytical department of brokerage company Grand Capital, said that the purchasing managers' index (PMI) in the retail sector and the Sentix index of the euro zone, and also the U.S. industrial orders will be the most important foreign statistics releases during the day.

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