Russian stocks mixed as no OPEC deal causes slide in oil prices

MOSCOW, Oct 31 (PRIME) -- Russia’s RTS stock market index fell on Monday because the absence of an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC states regarding oil output steps caused an oil price decline, but the MICEX rose because the ruble dynamics balanced this negative trend, analysts said.

The MICEX grew 0.40% to 1,989.64 and the RTS declined 0.35% to 988.74.

Representatives of OPEC states did not manage to come to a formal agreement regarding a freeze or reduction of the oil output volume, which disappointed global investors in commodities, Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said. But a following ruble decline protected the MICEX from falling significantly, he said.

“The U.S. dollar RTS index demonstrated a noticeable decrease, influenced by the intraday ruble weakening as compared with the North America’s currency. The ruble MICEX has continued the idealess consolidation of Friday,” Manzhos said.

“The Russian market in general traded in line with global floors but there were several interesting events as well,” Alfa-Capital analyst Andrei Shenk said. One of the most important of them was that Rosneft submitted an application to the antitrust authority seeking clearance to consolidate a 100% stake in oil company Bashneft, which supported Bashneft’s quotations.

Gazprom was the growth leader on Monday on the back of the news that the government plans to receive 18.86 rubles per share in dividends of the company for 2016, while the 2015 dividends amounted to 7.89 rubles per share. “Taking into account that many investors have traditionally held shares of the gas company for many years, the significant dividend payment rise is quite positive news,” Manzhos said.

Metals companies grew on the back of publication of strong quarterly financial results by Severstal, Shenk said.

MTS resurged from a nine-month low on the back of the information regarding its plans to hold an up to 4.9 billion ruble share buyback, Manzhos said.

Below are the MICEX’ five most active stocks on Monday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+2.84	138.84	6.216
Sberbank	-1.21	147.4	4.268
MTS	+4.78	223.5	2.223
Norilsk Nickel	-0.01	9344	1.687
Moscow Exchange	-0.58	116.71	1.497

(62.9037 rubles – U.S. $1)

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