Russian stocks rise on ruble fall, Lukoil’s strong report

MOSCOW, May 29 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks grew on Wednesday as the ruble exchange rate decreased, Lukoil posted a solid financial report, and Rosneft received tax incentives, which helped the MOEX Russia Index to stay in the green, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 1.20% to 2,641.15 and the RTS increased 0.38% to 1,275.92.

“A new loop of escalation of the trade war dragged all international stock markets into the red zone. Nevertheless, weakening ruble supported the MOEX Russia Index and ensured its growth,” Sofya Kirsanova, senior analyst at investment company Raiffeisen Capital, said.

The ruble lost 58.5 kopecks to 65.30 rubles against the U.S. dollar and 51.5 kopecks to 72.7575 rubles against the euro as of 5.33 p.m. Moscow time, according to the Moscow Exchange.

Aggravation of the U.S.–China trade conflict also hurt the oil price, but Russian oil and gas companies did not react to the oil price fall noticeably on Wednesday, Kirsanova said.

The Brent oil price lost 1.30% to U.S. 69.21 per barrel as of 5.39 p.m. Moscow time, according to the ICE exchange.

Sergei Suverov, senior analyst at BCS Premier, said: “Corporate reports had an impact on the growth of the Russian market – in particular, oil companies’ shares – namely the financial report of Lukoil for the first quarter of 2019 that outperformed forecasts of most analysts, and a piece of news that the Priobskoye field of Rosneft received additional incentives for the mineral extraction tax.”

A consistently high demand of foreigners for OFZ federal bonds also supported all classes of Russian financial assets, Suverov added.

Otkritie Broker’s analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that depreciation of the ruble was more important for national oil and gas companies than contraction of the oil price, so shares of gas giant Gazprom and oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft were among the leaders today.

At the same time, dynamics in shares of metals companies was less prominent as trade in the companies experienced a significant outburst of activity on Tuesday over problems with supplies of steel and iron ore from Brazil, Kochetkov said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.09	233.4	12.058
Gazprom	+1.97	207.14	8.812
Lukoil	+2.75	5240	8.476
Rosneft	+1.2	437	2.066
Tatneft	+3.29	725.9	1.864

(64.5394 rubles – U.S. $1)

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