Russian stocks mixed on strong oil, ruble, weak retail statistics

MOSCOW, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks closed mixed on Tuesday amid an oil price rebound and consequent strengthening of the ruble, and disappointing news on a fall in the country’s retail sales, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.67% to 1,705.01 and the RTS increased 0.22% to 683.05.

“The Russian stock market remained under pressure of a low ruble price for oil, but by the end of the day it managed to compensate the bulk of losses of the MICEX after sentiment on the U.S. market improved and oil returned to above U.S. $31 per barrel and on the back of the ruble’s consequent strengthening,” Yevgeny Loktyukhov, head of an analytical department at Promsvyazbank, said.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie attributed intraday sales on the domestic market to “worsening of external conditions in the morning,” and said that the situation improved as volatile futures for Brent oil swung to “a significant increase.”

However, he believes that “the Russian market’s sensitivity to constant fluctuations of extremely volatile oil contracts have rather weakened.”

The MICEX was also depressed by a report on a 10% decline in Russia’s retail sales to 27.576 trillion rubles in 2015, provided by the Federal State Statistics Service, Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

The dollar-denominated RTS increased on the back of the ruble’s strengthening to 78.36 against the U.S. dollar by the closing bell.

Yury Kravchenko, a senior analyst at Veles Capital, said that participants of the market does not expect that the U.S Federal Reserve will tighten its monetary policy at a meeting on Wednesday and it may supports oil quotations.

Transneft preferred stocks rose 1.46% correcting after a recent serious decline caused by the new that the company had accounts in Vneshprombank, which lost its license on January 1, Manzhos said.

Retailers were among gain losers, with Magnit falling 0.61% and Lenta plummeting 5.23%, due to more pessimistic view on economic perspective, while fertilizer makers declined on risks of a tax burden increase, Loktyukhov said. Acron fell 2.54% and PhosAgro lost 2.16%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.55	91.50	9.524
Gazprom	-0.83	131.89	3.448
Norilsk Nickel	-1.88	8880.00	2.840
Lukoil	-1.23	2320.00	2.792
Surgutneftegas pref	-4.23	43.43	2.720

(77.7965 rubles – U.S. $1)

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