Russian stocks rise in line with foreign floors despite falling oil

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks edged up on Wednesday despite lower oil prices as investors reacted to growth on foreign trade floors, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 0.38% to 2,160.51 and the RTS increased 0.64% to 1,066.75.

The Brent oil price contracted 0.728% to U.S. $53.54 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. Moscow time, according to the ICE exchange.

“Today the Russian stock market demonstrated moderate growth on the basis of a mixed external background. On the one hand, the Brent is consolidating at around $53.5 per barrel, which prompts sales in Russian assets. But the increase of European floors, where the main indices rose about 0.8–1.5% acted as a positive factor,” Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said.

Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that European traders hope that the European Central Bank will expand its quantitative measures in order to restrain crisis events in the peripheral countries of the E.U.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said that independent gas producer Novatek outperformed the sector and rose 1.06% to 770 rubles after the company had signed an additional 53 billion ruble agreement to supply up to 9.05 billion cubic meters of gas to power producer Mosenergo in 2017.

Common shares of oil company Tatneft rose only 0.13% to 423.50 rubles, while preferred shares grew 2.48% to 223 rubles. The securities had a mixed reaction to news that the company raised its combined oil output by 4.8% to 25.763 million tonnes in January–November. If Russia undertakes liabilities to cut oil output, the increase of the company’s production may turn out to be excessive in the mid-term, Manzhos said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.38	159.95	7.503
Gazprom	+0.30	151.95	3.558
ALROSA	-2.11	91.26	1.585
Rosneft	+1.02	356.25	1.551
Norilsk Nickel	+0.83	10990.00	1.390

(63.8741 rubles – U.S. $1)

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