Russian stocks may ease on no drivers, poor backdrop

MOSCOW, Nov 2 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market may open with a decrease on Tuesday due to lack of support from foreign markets and overall wait-and-see market sentiment, analysts said.

“The external background in the morning does not favor to continue buying. U.S. futures are weakly declining, with almost all commodities slightly down. Oil is up a symbolic 0.2%. Russian shares will continue to be pressured by the high key rate of the central bank and expectations of further increases. Many speculators in an uncertain environment will want to take yesterday’s profits,” Alexei Antonov of Alor Broker said.

“Key Asian indices are down, with the exception of South Korea after the publication of consumer inflation data in October. Futures on U.S. and European indices are weakly down. Brent crude oil prices are rising, but base metal prices are declining,” Vladimir Solovyov, head of PSB Bank’s analysis group, said.

Despite the mildly negative external background, the strength of oil prices may well support the Russian stock market today, Solovyov said.

Andrei Vernikov, chief analyst at Univer Capital, expects a neutral market opening, since yesterday’s growth was only a small victory for the Russian stocks, which brought no real upward sentiment to the wait-and-see market.

Vitaly Manzhos’ analytical team at Algo Capital expects the MOEX Index to open with a small change of 0.1–0.3%, in the range of 4,210–4,230 points, as they characterize the state of external background as ambiguous. This creates conditions for the opening with a restrained deviation. After a near-neutral opening, the MOEX Index is likely to move into consolidation, Manzhos said.

“Taking into account the results of previous evening trading, we can assume that if the current background remains, the opening of the MOEX Index will be close to Monday’s closing level, Vasily Karpunin of BCS Financial Group said.

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