Russian stocks sag following oil price slide, ruble strengthening

MOSCOW, Oct 3 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market fell on Thursday, following decreasing oil prices and a strengthening ruble, which hurt exporters, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index eased 0.44% to 2,707.47, and the RTS index decreased 0.51% to 1,307.01.

“The morning attempts of the Russian indices to rebound found no support and the quotations again anchored in the negative territory, reflecting an ambiguous background on the European floors and the failure of oil quotations to return to a level above U.S. $58 per barrel,” Arseny Dadashev, director of the Academy for Management of Finance and Investment, said.

According to Dadashev, recovery of the futures on U.S. indices before the start of the trading session limited the losses of the Russian market.

Otkritie Broker’s senior analyst Andrei Kochetkov said that metals producers and retailers depressed the market by worries about falling export revenue on the back of continuing strengthening of the ruble and persistently weak domestic demand.

Oil companies declined in the wake of a decrease of oil prices, he said.

Sberbank was among the daily leaders despite the news about a leak of data of least 200 clients. The bank said that the incident could not lead to misuse of the data in any card transactions.

Kochetkov said that the European markets traded mixed after the World Trade Organization (WTO) allowed the U.S. to raise tariffs in retaliation for European subsidies to Airbus and companies in other industries. “Therefore, Washington’s trade war against everyone will continue and will take an increasing toll on the global economy,” he said.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	+0.26	224.08	8.608
Gazprom	-0.22	223.1	6.680
Lukoil	-0.88	5362.5	3.596
Norilsk Nickel	-0.41	16602	3.132
Severstal	-2.15	882.2	2.024

(65.4399 rubles – U.S. $1)

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