Russian stocks rise as MSCI keeps bks in index, drill cancelled

MOSCOW, Aug 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market advanced on Monday because U.S. index provider MSCI Barra decided to keep shares of Sberbank and VTB Bank in the MSCI Russia, while Moscow halted a large air force drill, calming investors down, analysts said.

The MICEX grew 1.8% to 1,372.45, and the RTS rose 2.83% to 1,203.67.

“The main reason behind the Russian market growth today was the information that MSCI Russia has kept the shares of Sberbank and VTB in the index. The fear that the Russian banks will be excluded was the strongest one among local investors last week,” Veles Capital senior analyst Airat Khalikov said.

The geopolitical tensions calmed down and the European markets were going up today as Russia halted a massive air force drill in the Astrakhan Region, Khalikov said.

U.S. and European media speculated on a possibility of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine last week because albeit the Astrakhan Region is quite far from Ukraine, the number of aircraft which participated in the maneuver nearly equaled the entire air force capacity of Ukraine. The fear in the West was enormous, he said.

Traders believe that the ban on imports of food from the E.U. imposed to retaliate sanctions will add 0.2%–0.5% to Russia’s gross domestic product because local producers will have more room to develop, and this was one of the smallest factors of the Russian companies’ growth today, Khalikov said.

Novolipetsk Steel gained 2.44% on the back of a strong US GAAP April–June financial report, Vitaly Manzhos, analyst at Nord Capital, said.

Shares of some food producers, Glavtorgprodukt, Russian Sea and Cherkizovo, began to cool down after an upsurge in interest on the food import ban, Manzhos said. Glavtorgprodukt went down 6.00%, Russian Sea tumbled 4.19%, and Cherkizovo fell 4.00%.

Russian retailers who lost access to E.U. products were still underperforming the market, Metropol analyst Andrei Rozhkov said. Magnit went up 0.95% and Dixy rose 0.88%.

Macroeconomic figures to be released by the E.U., the U.K. and China later this week will influence the Russian stock market trends, Rozhkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+4.96	74.21	12.392
Gazprom	+1.38	128.30	5.563
Lukoil	+0.97	1947.10	1.955
Sberbank pref	+6.33	57.10	1.794
VTB	+3.86	0.03868	1.442

(36.4461 rubles – U.S. $1)

End