Russian stocks may rise on neutral markets despite crude easing

MOSCOW, Oct 22 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market may rise slightly at the opening on Friday on foreign markets’ mixed mood, despite crude oil prices seemingly having lost growth pace, analysts said.

Alexei Antonov of Alor Broker called today’s external background neutral. “U.S. futures are trading in symbolic surplus, precious metals and most industrial metals are rising. However, oil is losing about 0.8%,” he said, pinning the drop in prices on speculators being afraid of not having enough time to lock in their profits.

“However, we expect a slight rebound of the Russian stock market,” Antonov said.

Gold futures added 0.3%, China’s Shanghai Composite stock index was down 0.2% and Japan’s Nikkei225 gained 0.3%. “All this creates conditions for the opening of the Moscow Exchange Index with a restrained deviation,” Vitaly Manzhos of Algo Capital said.

“We expect the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) Index to open with a moderate change within 0.1–0.3%, in the range of 4210–4230 bps. After the opening with a moderate deviation, the MOEX Index is likely to move into consolidation,” Manzhos said.

Andrei Vernikov of Univer Capital said that his analytical team expects a neutral opening, since quotes were rising in the evening session, and yesterday’s decline on the oil chart is not a decline “but rather a micro bump.”

Russia’s central bank will highly likely raise the key rate by 0.5% today at 3:30 p.m. Moscow time. The rhetoric of the regulator will be harsh and the head of the bank Elvira Nabiullina will give a transparent hint of another rate increase this year, Antonov believes.

“The Russian market may open the trading with a slight increase, correcting the strong decline of the previous day. However, a likely 50 basis point increase in the Central Bank rate could worsen investor sentiment in equities,” Andrei Kochetkov of Otkritie Research said.

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