Russian stocks rise following foreign markets, Gazprom rally

MOSCOW, Jul 25 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market increased on Thursday, following a Gazprom rally and rising foreign markets, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 0.68% to 2,701.02, and the RTS Index increased 0.54% to 1,346.91.

“On Thursday, July 25, the Russian stock market adds almost 1.4% to the MOEX Russia Index following the increasing global trade floors, and in many aspects due to the rallying shares of Gazprom,” Sofya Kirsanova, senior analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at investment company Veles Capital, said that Gazprom fell in the first minutes of the trade on the news about a planned sale of a 2.9% stake in the company. Soon after that, the shares, strongly oversold after the ex-dividend gap, started to rise confidently, most probably, supported by technical factors.

Gazprom topped its maximum since July 17, the date of the ex-dividend gap, of 224.03 rubles.

Gazprom said in the morning that two of its subsidiaries would offer 693.6 million shares of the parent company, accounting for 2.9% of capital, on the Moscow Exchange on Thursday.

Kirsanova said that investors had positive expectations of a meeting of the European Central Bank and hoped that the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) would reduce the rate at a meeting on July 31.

She also said that resumption of the U.S.–China trade negotiations continued to affect the global markets positively. China authorities allowed five companies to import soya beans from the U.S. without the current 25% duty. Earlier this week, the U.S. eased the trade restrictions on China as well. “This points to an intent of the sides to make tradeoffs,” Kirsanova said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+3.3	219	37.195
Sberbank	+0.98	232.9	7.688
Lukoil	-0.74	5096.5	4.274
Tatneft	-0.11	740.5	1.618
Magnit	-0.17	3793.5	1.574

(63.1162 rubles – U.S. $1)

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