Russian stocks rise on optimistic expectations from Trump’s speech

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew on Tuesday supported by attempts to restore growth in oil prices and due to optimistic expectations from a Wednesday speech by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, analysts said.

The MICEX rose 1.19% to 2,237.49 and the RTS increased 1.27% to 1,175.01.

“The Russian market has demonstrated ahead of tomorrow’s first news conference of Donald Trump, whose swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for January 20. Investors expect an improvement of relations with the West, which may have a favorable impact on Russian companies,” Irina Rogova, an analyst at Forex Club group of companies, said.

Another factor of support were the oil prices, which tried to resume growth. The Brent oil price showed an intra-day high of U.S. $55.34 per barrel today, Rogova said.

“Oil was in the green zone on the news that Iraq slashed oil production by 160,000 barrels as was forecast by an agreement between oil producers. But this may not be enough. On Monday, the U.S. Department of energy sold 8 million barrels of strategic reserves. A preliminary forecast of U.S. commercial reserves showed that they may have risen by 1.75 million barrels last week,” Andrei Kochetkov, an analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said that Russian “bulls” were still supported by the European floors, where major indices rose 0.1–0.2% during the day. Kochetkov also said that the British FTSE 100 index may show record highs thanks to a weak British pound. The FTSE 100 rose 0.63% to 7,283.12 points as of 6.42 p.m. Moscow time.

Kochetkov also said that shares of power producer Territorial Generating Company-1 (TGC-1) grew 9.2% to 0.01632 rubles during the day on expectations of high dividends after a member of gas giant Gazprom’s management board was reelected as chairman of TGC-1’s board of directors.

Gazprom rose 2.31% to 157.97 rubles. The company raised natural gas exports to non-CIS states by 12.5% on the year to a record figure of 179.3 billion cubic meters in 2016, Kochetkov said.

Shares of retailer Magnit fell 2.63% to 10,534 rubles as its sales rose only 6.91% on the year to 108.966 billion rubles in December 2016, which obviously signifies a slowdown of the company’s growth, he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+1.93	171.60	10.071
Gazprom	+2.31	157.97	4.089
Magnit	-2.63	10534.00	3.714
Lukoil	+0.43	3399.00	1.740
Norilsk Nickel	+2.79	10397.00	1.599

(59.8961 rubles – U.S. $1)

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