Russian stocks rise on Biden hopes, coronavirus vaccine news

MOSCOW, Nov 9 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks jumped on Monday together with all foreign bourses on hopes that Joe Biden, who is leading in the U.S. presidential polls, would end Donald Trump’s trade war practices, while the news about positive results of trials of a new coronavirus vaccine brought expectations that the global economic growth may restart soon, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 3.18% to 2,987.75 and the RTS increased 4.92% to 1,236.30.

“The national market continued growing thanks to the positive external background. The U.S. elections have finished, and Joe Biden’s victory becomes clearer each minute. … Now the U.S. political system is to return to discussions of economic incentives, which most likely will continue weakening the U.S. dollar and fuel interest to the risky assets,” Andrei Kochetkov, lead analyst for global research at Otkritie Broker, said.

The European indices rose on hopes that Biden will put an end to the trade wars started by Trump and markets will have brighter prospects, Kochetkov said.

“The world stock markets experienced one of the strongest increases of the entire year of 2020. Trading in the U.S. started with an increase of over 4% above previous annual highs… while the E.U. markets grew to the pre-crisis levels of February. The euphoria was connected to declaring Joe Biden the U.S. President and a simultaneous release of data that Pfizer’s vaccine works for COVID-19 in 90% of cases,” Valery Yemelyanov, analyst at Freedom Finance, said.

Kochetkov said that the news about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine means that mass vaccination is becoming more realistic ensuring a return to normal economy and recovery of demand for oil and other Russian exports.

Yemelyanov also said that the positive market mood did not bypass the oil market, where the Brent oil price jumped by around 9%, while the U.S. blend WTI gained 10%.

As a result, Russian energy companies led the market with Lukoil growing by 9.53% to 4,815 rubles, Tatneft by 8.80% to 487 rubles, and gas producer Novatek by 7.99% to 1,181.80 rubles, Yemelyanov said.

He also said that gold companies were the loss leaders as the gold prices plummeted by more than U.S. $100 to $1,860 per ounce from $1,970 per ounce. Polymetal International plunged by 11.17% to 1,710 rubles, and Polyus dived by 8.73% to 16,152 rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+5.70	229.89	43.671
Lukoil	+9.53	4815.00	19.620
Gazprom	+3.99	171.50	16.414
Norilsk Nickel	+3.10	20762.00	10.964
Aeroflot	+8.45	64.70	9.396

(77.1875 rubles – U.S. $1)

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