Russian stocks mixed with MOEX Russia failing to follow positivity

MOSCOW, Sep 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market closed mixed on Wednesday with the RTS index rising following an encouraging foreign background, and the MOEX Russia Index demonstrating a fall, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index decreased 0.44% to 2,876.07 and the RTS rose 1% to 1,201.34.

“The Russian stock market continued negative dynamics despite an improving external background. Russian stocks were supported by the energy market dynamics with the nearest Brent oil futures regaining part of its previous losses and attempting to consolidate about U.S. $40 per barrel,” senior analyst at Promsvyazbank Bogdan Zvarich said.

The main European and U.S. benchmarks grew around 1.7–2.1%, but the MOEX Russia Index still demonstrated a fall, which means investors are not sure that the market can recover fully and return to above 2,900, Zvarich added.

Grocery retailer X5 Retail Group, gold producers Polyus and Polymetal International were among the market outsiders that lost more than 2%.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that Polymetal was pressured by the news that Otkritie Financial Corporation (FC) Bank had sold 16 million shares of the precious metals miner, or an about 3.4% stake, at 1,900 rubles per share.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.09	217.48	10.042
Polymetal	-2.98	1890	8.514
Yandex	+0.53	4694.8	7.361
Gazprom	-0.14	172.7	6.980
Lukoil	-0.82	4681	4.898

(75.9645 rubles – U.S. $1)

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