Russian stocks seen falling on oil price decrease, Taliban in Kabul

MOSCOW, Aug 16 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely decline at the start of Monday's session because of an oil price fall, and a negative emotional background after terrorists of the Taliban, which is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under the Russian law, took over Kabul, analysts said.

"We expect a weakly negative opening of our market today -- the oil prices fall, the MSCI emerging markets index is also down," Andrei Vernikov, head of the investment analysis and education department of investment company Univer Capital, said.

Alor Broker senior analyst Alexei Antonov said that the background for the opening of session is negative as the U.S. futures fell by 0.2–0.3%, oil lost more than 0.5%, industrial and precious metals decreased.

Vernikov said that investors' risk appetite is under the pressure because of the lack of understanding of further actions of the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed). The market will wait for publication of the minutes of the last meeting later in the week, he said.

The emotional background for the start of Russian session is negative because the Taliban troops took Afghanistan under control and did not fulfill promises to establish a coalition government, Vernikov said.

He also said that good news can come from China. "The market participants rumor that the Chinese government will soon ease the monetary policy to help economic growth. Maybe, the Chinese stock market indices will be able to stop June’s downward trend, which will favor all developing markets," he said.

China's retail sales and industrial output figures published earlier on Monday signaled a sharp deceleration of economic growth, Vernikov said.

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