Russian stocks recover as foreign markets, oil prices rise

MOSCOW, Mar 3 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market went up on Tuesday, recovering after three sessions of losses as the oil price recovered and foreign markets rise, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 2.01% to 2,821.37, and the RTS index rose 4.19% to 1,358.03.

“The Russian indices are pricing in yesterday’s record rise of the global markets. The Dow Jones index (+5.1%) demonstrated a maximum intraday leap for many years. The MOEX Russia Index adds 2% on this background, the RTS Index adds more than 2.5%,” Freedom Finance said.

The brokerage added that volatility started to subside as the MOEX Russia range narrowed to 2,800–2,850.

In the evening, the Russian market growth accelerated as the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) cut the key rate to 1.00–1.25% from 1.50–1.75%, analysts said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that oil companies led the Russian market on the back of an oil price rally. “We must take into account the fact that for the majority of blue chips, investors are mainly guided by the general mood, rather than the price levels in the current situation,” she said.

Brent and WTI added about 2.5–3.0% and, according to Kozhukhova, the closest targets were U.S. $54 for Brent and $50 for WTI. Before a meeting of the OPEC plus nonmember agreement sides scheduled for Thursday, investors will pay attention to the U.S. reserves data, she said.

The European markets grew, the market participants waited for a conference call of the G7 finance ministers to discuss the measures to support their economies amid coronavirus later on Tuesday, the analyst said. According to Kozhukhova, the U.S. stock market trends before the opening was moderately positive.

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that Aeroflot increased 0.71% after publishing a solid financial report for 2019.

Kozhukhova said that Territorial Generating Company-1 (TGC-1) continued the rise, gaining 4.98% most probably as dividend expectations recovered after publication of financials for 2019 under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS).

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+1.36	201.48	21.084
Sberbank	+3.71	236.63	19.696
Lukoil	+4.18	5782	11.275
Norilsk Nickel	+2.75	20714	7.511
Rosneft	+2.92	406	4.526

(66.3274 – U.S. $1)

End