Russian stocks rise slightly amid worsening global environment

MOSCOW, Mar 3 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market edged up in the first half of the trading session on Wednesday, but lost most of its gains by the end of the day due to a worsening foreign background, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index grew 0.17% to 3,416.04 and the RTS increased 0.08% to 1,453.61.

“The MOEX Russia and the RTS indices lost almost all their gains by the end of the main trading session to close near the support lines of 3,410 and 1,445… Buyers seem to be feeling not very confident,” Veles Broker analyst Yelena Kozhukhova said.

The global market environment worsened in the middle of the week as investors are still worrying about high yields of government securities, but the medium-range outlook of risky assets is still optimistic, she added.

Kozhukhova also said that demand for gold was not very high, and the gold price went down closer to U.S. $1,700 per ounce, the lowest since June 2020, which impacted the shares of Russian precious metals producers despite sound financial results.

Otkritie Broker analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that aluminum producer RUSAL was among the best performers rising 2.29% on the news it managed to raise a 45 billion ruble 15-year syndicated loan from Gazprombank and VTB Bank for construction of the Taishet aluminum smelter, or TaAZ.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-0.08	278.88	16.441
Norilsk Nickel	-2.25	23240	16.140
Gazprom	+0.09	222.95	6.891
Lukoil	+1.18	5715	4.792
Yandex	+0.06	5029.8	3.740

(74.5755 rubles – U.S. $1)

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