Russian stocks rise on news on omicron strain of coronavirus

MOSCOW, Dec 1 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market grew on Wednesday together with the majority of foreign bourses on the news that the omicron strain of COVID-19 triggers lighter symptoms than delta, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 1.77% to 3,959.29 and the RTS increased 2.51% to 1,687.12.

Dmitry Babin, stock market expert at BCS World of Investment, said that the Russian market started rising the start of trading in spite of the negative impact coming from a statement of the U.S. Federal Reserve System head that the monetary stimuli should be abolished faster. Also, China’s the business activity indicator in the producing sector was worse than expected.

“In spite of all the negative background, the global bourses and oil prices recover actively today. The positive momentum was provided by preliminary information that people recover from the illness caused by the omicron strain significantly easier than from the delta strain. Given the higher contagiousness of the new strain, this could become sort of natural vaccination that will result in the omicron strain squeezing out all other strains and solving the pandemic problem,” Babin said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that the market mood on the global stock and commodity markets rose on the statement of the Israeli healthcare minister that the third dose of the Pfizer vaccine was efficient against the new coronavirus strain.

“The news about another diplomatic spat between Russia and the U.S. is compensated by confirmation of information about preparation of negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden. In the technical sense, the national market is trying to soften the overbought state while the background is favorable,” Andrei Kochetkov, leading analyst at Otkritie Research, said.

The increase of oil prices propelled the shares of the oil and gas companies, Kochetkov said. Lukoil, Rosneft, and Tatneft grew by 2.03%, 2.38%, and 3.34%, respectively.

Kozhukhova also said that the shares of the Moscow Exchange rose by 4.60% in line with the other financial stocks as investors likely expect a further increase of volatility and volumes during uncertainty and toughening of monetary policies by the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the Russian central bank.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+4.50	349.28	26.844
Sberbank	+4.39	328.82	19.591
Lukoil	+2.03	6645.00	10.421
Norilsk Nickel	+2.93	22170.00	6.243
TCS Group GDRs	+4.58	7440.00	5.170

(74.8926 rubles – U.S. $1)

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