Russian stocks rise on positive environ, lack of negative drivers

MOSCOW, Apr 29 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market grew on Friday supported by a positive external background and by a lack of negative drivers, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 2.58% to 2,445.17 and the RTS increased 3.80% to 1,081.52.

“Following the Thursday fall, the MOEX Russia Index switched into growth today as there was no negative news, even though the trade volume contracted significantly on Friday to around 40 billion rubles. In spite of the ruble strengthening to around 71 per U.S. dollar, the exporters traded higher, and there was good demand from investors for blue chips,” Promsvyazbank’s senior analyst Alexei Golovinov said.

Andrei Kochetkov, analyst at Otkritie Research, said that investors focused on the gold producers and oil companies as commodity prices rose. Oil major Lukoil gained 7.27% to 4,699.50 rubles, while gold companies Polymetal International and Polyus rose by 2.05% to 721.50 rubles and 2.77% to 13,630 rubles.

Financial group Finam’s analyst Igor Dodonov said that the market mood

on all stock markets in the world were mainly optimistic on Friday as the investors were focused on the flow of corporate reports, many of which outperformed expectations.

“The Russian stock indices restarted growth on Friday as they priced in the favorable situation on the foreign stock markets and the growth of prices for oil and the main types of metals. However, it is worth noting that the anti-Russian rhetoric of the West has strengthened in the past days, and the probability that restrictions on supplies of the Russian oil will be included in the next package of the E.U. sanctions are high,” Dodonov said.

Golovinov also said that the shares of real estate developer Samolet Group increased by 4.81% to 2,636 rubles in reaction to reduction of the interest rates of mortgage loans under the state subsidization program.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+4.00	128.80	11.076
Gazprom	+1.21	240.40	10.523
Lukoil	+7.27	4699.50	3.959
VTB	+5.13	0.020095	2.044
TCS Group	-3.41	2608.00	1.703

(72.2953 rubles – U.S. $1)

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