Russian stocks may open higher on ECB’s QE decision, oil prices

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks may edge up at opening on Friday following a positive trend on emerging markets spurred by the European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision to launch a quantitative easing program and rising oil prices, analysts said.

“We see that the oversold market is going away, but is not accompanied by positive economic news…It is possible that our market will for now follow the tracks of emerging markets, as investors’ attitude towards them improved after the ECB decision to launch a quantitative easing program,” Andrei Vernikov, Zerich Capital deputy CEO, said.

On Thursday, the ECB said it will buy 60 billion euros worth of bonds per month from March till September 2016.

“The Russian stock market will open higher today. Rising U.S. stock indices and oil prices will provide a 0.5% upward gap at the opening,” Denis Khripushin, analyst at 2trade.ru, said.

On Thursday, the DJIA closed 1.48% higher, while the S&P 500 rose 1.53%.

Asia is trading in the green zone, though the growth there is very moderate. The Brent oil price rose 1.98% to U.S. $49.48 per barrel as of 8.27 a.m. Moscow time on the news that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz died.

“From the point of view of technical analysis, the RTS index’ closure above 800 means a possibility of a further increase, but later in the day growth may stop due to uncertainty about oil prices,” Olma’s senior analyst Anton Startsev said.

HSBC’s production business activity index has grown for two months in a row and was higher than expected, Vasily Oleinink, analyst at ITinvest, said, adding he expects a neutral opening with a slight increase of Russian indices in first half of the day.

During the day, the Eurozone will release business activity index in the services sector, while the U.S. is to publish Chicago Fed National Activity Index and Manufacturing PMI.

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