Russian stocks rise on oil price growth, pre-holiday lull

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks increased on Thursday supported by a 0.37% oil price rise, while trading activity was low ahead of the New Year holidays, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 1.07% to 2,206.33 and the RTS increased 0.52% to 1,144.26.

“The Russian market traded in a narrow range on low volumes. There is no resolution to move indices this or that way seen in the pre-New Year days. Oil remains above U.S. $56 (per barrel), volatility on foreign floors is minimal,” Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said.

Raiffeisen Capital analyst Sofya Kirsanova said that the Brent oil price is increasing on Thursday despite the fact that preliminary results on the U.S. oil reserves from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showed growth by 4.2 million barrels, while analysts projected a decline of 1.5 million barrels. Everyone is waiting for the implementation of the OPEC and non-OPEC agreement on oil production cuts, she said.

The second biggest lender VTB continued growing and gained 1.33% on Thursday after reporting recently that its net profit jumped to 45.5 billion rubles in January–November from 3 billion rubles in the same period of 2015, as calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The country’s largest truck maker Kamaz increased 0.94% after raising its 2016 IFRS net profit forecast to about 200–230 million rubles from 150–200 million rubles.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.71	171.30	8.429
Gazprom	+1.07	152.62	2.247
VTB	+1.33	0.07399	2.231
Lukoil	+2.41	3424.50	1.514
Norilsk Nickel	+1.64	9951.00	1.391

(60.6669 rubles – U.S. $1)

End