Russian stocks rise on corporate news, weak ruble

MOSCOW, Aug 31 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market increased on Thursday over the weak ruble, financial reports and dividend expectations, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 0.48% to 3,227.99, and the RTS index rose 0.68% to 1,059.17.

“The Russian market managed to renew the annual maximum in the first half of Thursday. The MOEX Russia Index rose to 3,234.68, but then fell back to the level of 3,220. One of the index leaders were VTB Bank shares on the background of strong reporting for seven months,” Otkritie Broker’s leading analyst for global research Andrei Kochetkov said.

The ruble dynamics also supported purchases of exporters' shares, Kochetkov added.

The key drivers of stock growth remained the weak ruble and expectations of good financial results from a number of large Russian companies, Director of the stock market department at managing company Pervaya Anton Kravchenko said.

According to Kravchenko, investors are also assessing possible dividend payments at the end of the year based on interim results and continue to buy promising securities.

“In the first half of the day, the ruble was declining, but at the end of the day it even strengthened against the U.S. dollar… The national currency was supported by the growing oil,” the analyst said.

Brent oil was showing a noticeable growth by the end of trading in the Russian main session getting support from favorable statistics from China and the data on oil reserves in the U.S., which decreased by 10.584 million barrels, he also said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Transneft	+4.49	132,600	8.777
VTB Bank	+2.26	0.028735	6.857
Sberbank	+0.26	265.4	5.478
Lukoil	+0.04	6,840	5.061
Gazprom	+0.26	177.94	4.317

(95.9283 rubles – U.S. $1)

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