Russian stocks mixed on vaccine news, ruble strengthening

MOSCOW, May 26 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed mixed on Tuesday as the RTS index followed a positive global trend in the wake of the news about new attempts to create a vaccine for the coronavirus and the MOEX Russia Index dipped a bit on strengthening of the ruble, analysts said. 

"Let us note that the MOEX Russia Index rose to 2,800 during the session but, in spite of retention of the external optimism, lost most of the growth at the end of the session, returning to the levels of Monday," senior analyst at Promsvyazbank Bogdan Zvarich said.

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said: "A new piece of news about progress in creation of a vaccine against the COVID-19 and stimulating measures ensures a positive mood of market participants."

Novavax said it started tests of an experimental vaccine for the coronavirus on people and expected the first results already in July. The Stoxx 600 added 1% in the first half of the day led by the tourism sector that rose by about 6%. But the pharmaceuticals sector was weak as not all producers are expected to benefit from the vaccine race, Kochetkov said, adding that telecom companies were also among the losers. 

Kochetkov said that according to Goldman Sachs, the oil market can be in deficit already in June, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak was also optimistic, forecasting deficit in June–July, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects oversupply to stop in July–December.

Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said that the European markets were moderately optimistic as the Euro Stoxx 50 grew by 0.5%, and the U.S. stock market futures rose with the S&P 500 adding 1.8%.

She said that Territorial Generating Company-1 (TGC-1) shares were among the Russian market leaders, rising 4.97% after the board of directors recommended paying 0.001036523 rubles per share in 2019 dividends.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.57	194	15.410
Gazprom	-0.35	196.86	13.209
Lukoil	+0.6	5445	8.843
Norilsk Nickel	-1.23	22118	5.077
Rosneft	+0.12	374.4	4.011

(71.5962 rubles – U.S. $1)

End %%mk/jst%%