Russian stocks rise on high oil price, cbank’s key rate decision

MOSCOW, Mar 18 (PRIME) -- The growth of oil prices and an expected Russian central bank’s decision to keep its key rate flat at 11% pushed domestic stocks higher on Friday, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 1.23% to 1,914.02 and the RTS increased 1.30% to 885.13.

“Once again growth of oil prices is the reason for the rise (of Russian stocks). This week’s media reports that Iran may take part in oil talks in Doha on April 17 significantly improved expectations of the market’s participants of results of the talks,” Sofya Kirsanova, an analyst at managing company Raiffeisen Capital, said.

The Brent oil price went up 1.517% to U.S. $42.18 per barrel as of 5.57 p.m. Moscow time, according to the ICE exchange.

The central bank decided to keep the key rate at 11% because despite some stabilization on financial and commodity markets and lower inflation.

“The predictable decision from the central bank…was not a negative factor for the market. The expected lack of news was perceived by market participants as good information,” Vitaly Manzhos, senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said.

Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy Systems (FGC UES) grew 3.87% to 0.0765 rubles. The papers might have priced in Thursday’s financial report with a slight lag, Manzhos said. FGC UES posted a 44.1 billion ruble net profit in 2015 against a 20.6 billion ruble net loss in 2014, as calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards.

Common and preferred shares of oil company Surgutneftegas lost 2.46% to 38.815 rubles and 3.66% to 43.550 rubles, respectively, due to a significant firming of the ruble and the company’s high foreign currency reserves, Manzhos said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+2.68	112.40	14.984
Gazprom	+2.30	150.65	7.832
Lukoil	+2.18	2810.00	5.262
Surgutneftegas prefs	-3.66	43.55	3.665
Norilsk Nickel	+2.67	9490.00	3.418

(68.5598 rubles – U.S. $1)

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