Russian stocks mixed as investors take profit on sanctions fears

MOSCOW, Jul 27 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed mixed on Friday as investors decided to take profit amid fears of new U.S. sanctions, while oil prices provided no support to the market, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 0.02% to 2,292.72 and the RTS increased 0.26% to 1,151.74.

“The Russian stock market showed growth over this week, but a big number of uncertainties forced investors to take profit ahead of the weekend,” Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The ruble switched to strengthening against the dollar and euro by the end of the day after neutral dynamics the major part of the day amid the central bank’s decision to keep the key rate at 7.25% annually as expected, she said.

“Having made uncertain attempts to grow at the opening of trading, the MOEX Russia Index quickly lost the gained positions and went into the negative zone already by noon,” Veles Capital analysts said.

“On the back of news that the U.S.’ Senate is discussing new sanctions against Russia, our market players took a cautious position and took part of the profit,” the analysts said.

Oil prices provided no support to the Russian stock market with Brent oil futures trading in a symbolic plus, while European indices were gaining around 0.5%.

Fertilizer producer Uralkali lost 0.88% after posting a 2.3 billion ruble net loss in January–June against a 21.3 billion ruble net profit in the same period of 2017, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS).

Oil and gas company Surgutneftegas added 0.53% on reports that its RAS net profit jumped to 371.4 billion rubles in January–June.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’s five most active stocks on Friday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.52	208.90	12.215
Magnit	-0.23	4270.00	1.629
Lukoil	+0.11	4425.00	1.582
Gazprom	-0.14	137.99	1.313
Norilsk Nickel	+0.19	10848.00	1.155

(62.9471 rubles – U.S. $1)

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