Russian stocks may open flat due to upcoming May holidays

MOSCOW, Apr 28 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market is unlikely to move at opening and may remain steady during the day on Friday ahead oflong holidays, analysts said.

“We expect the MICEX to open at around 2,015 today and fluctuate around the mark in anticipation of the long holidays break, while the major drivers will be a decision of the central bank on its monetary policy and corporate events,” Oleg Shagov, head of investment company Solid’s research department, said.

The Russian markets will be closed on May 1 for May Day celebrations.

Andrei Vernikov, deputy CEO for investment research at Zerich Capital Management, said that the market expects the central bank to reduce its key rate by 0.25 or even 0.5 percentage points.

“We project this after (President) Vladimir Putin’s statement that something should be done about too strong a ruble and a promise to do it. In particular, (a promise) to agricultural producers,” Vernikov added.

The U.S. indices futures and European pre-market look flat, while the Asian stock exchanges are easing. The Brent oil price slid to about $51 per barrel amid concerns that the market is oversupplied, but later bounced back to $52.

In Russia, investors may also follow January-March RAS financial results of power utility Mosenergo, power generating company RusHydro, Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy Systems (FGC UES), power producer Territorial Generating Company-1 (TGC-1), belonging to Fortum Russia, and fertilizer producer Acron.

They could also be interested in IFRS results for 2016 of oil Surgutneftegas and a slew of dividend decisions to be made by the boards of directors of Norilsk Nickel, NLMK, M.Video, Magnit and other companies.

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