Russian stocks rise on corporate news, high oil price in rubles

MOSCOW, Aug 29 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew on Wednesday propelled by the oil shares that gained momentum thanks to high oil prices in rubles and a positive corporate news flow, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 1.39% to 2,348.44 and the RTS increased 0.62% to 1,085.01.

“The Russian stock market grew today mainly on corporate reports,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

Oil company Surgutneftegas grew 1.88% on a report that the net profit more than quadrupled on the year, while oil giant Lukoil gained 1.11% as the IFRS net profit of the company grew 37.5% on the year to 276.4 billion rubles in January–June, Kochetkov said.

“It is obvious that the falling ruble was one of the major drivers for the ruble-denominated assets, as it has a favorable impact on all Russian exporters,” Vasily Oleinik, an expert at investment company Finam, said.

The ruble lost 43.25 kopecks against the U.S. dollar to 68.3025 as of 5.48 p.m. Moscow time and 48.25 kopecks against the euro to 79.8325, according to the Moscow Exchange.

“It is likely that the general undervaluation of our market combined with a record-high price of oil in rubles supports consistent demand for Russian shares from many investors,” Dmitry Babin, an expert at BCS Broker, said.

Babin also said that the high ruble price of oil supported independent gas producer Novatek, which gained 4.2%, while oil companies Tatneft, Gazprom Neft, and Rosneft grew 1.29%, 1.70%, and 1.03%, respectively.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.82	183.50	7.183
Lukoil	+1.11	4638.50	2.976
Gazprom	+1.57	147.88	2.812
Novatek	+4.20	1111.80	2.062
ALROSA	+1.89	100.49	1.950

(67.3911 rubles – U.S. $1)

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