Russian stocks rise on Wed oil price surge, Fed suspension plans

MOSCOW, Feb 4 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew on Thursday following Wednesday’s oil price surge and Fed’s inclination to suspend rate raising plans, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 2.38% to 1,787.93 and the RTS increased 6.01% to 738.82.

The Russian market regained some losses of previous 3 days due to an about 7% oil price surge on Wednesday, Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said.

Possible suspension of Fed’s plans to raise rates were positive for the commodity market. “This is why it is no surprise that securities of the oil and gas sector are among the leaders today,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

Oil companies Bashneft, Tatneft and Surgutneftegas gained 3.67% to 2,074 rubles, 7.28% to 340.55 rubles and 4.45% to 38.12 rubles, respectively, while independent gas producer Novatek rose 3.75% to 636 rubles.

Strengthening of the ruble resulted in growth of banking shares. Common and preferred shares of Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank and shares of second biggest bank VTB went up 3.22% to 97.57 rubles, 3.72% to 70.79 rubles and 3.55% to 0.07199 rubles, respectively.

Common shares of the Moscow Exchange were among the loss leaders and fell 7.33% to 92.30 rubles. On Wednesday, one of the bourse’s strategic investors, China’s Chengdong Investment Corporation, sold its 5.2% stake for 89 rubles per share, which is 11% less than Wednesday’s closing price, Kochetkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+3.22	97.57	11.909
Gazprom	+3.10	135.07	5.149
Moscow Exchange	-7.33	92.30	4.647
Lukoil	+3.15	2553.50	3.143
Norilsk Nickel	+2.61	8999.00	2.465

(79.2593 rubles – U.S. $1)

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