Russian stocks seen flat ahead of new round of US–China talks

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely open with marginal dynamics on Wednesday, as the U.S. and China are scheduled to start a new round of trade negotiations on Thursday, analysts said.

“We see the external background before the opening of the Russian market today as neutral. It is not easy for domestic assets to demonstrate a positive dynamics ahead of the trade negotiations starting tomorrow,” Vadim Kravchuk, analyst at Otkritie Broker, said.

According to the analyst, the market doubts in a positive outcome of the talks continues to increase after China reduced agenda of the meeting and the U.S. blacklisted 28 Chinese companies over pressure on Uighurs, and restricted visas to Chinese state officials.

He said that although the U.S. said that the actions were unrelated to the trade negotiations, the timing was wrong, and the U.S. indices can continue to fall with the S&P 500 probably reaching a year low.

Kravchuk said that oil prices continued to decrease on the back of a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), cutting the outlook for the average Brent price in 2020 to U.S. $59.9 from $62.

Investment company Olma’s senior analyst Anton Startsev said that the Brexit issue remains a factor of global uncertainty as the positions of the Great Britain, Ireland and the E.U. are far from consensus, while there are only three weeks left to decide.

The U.S. will publish job openings (JOLTS) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) oil reserves on Wednesday. Minutes of a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will be released after closing of the Russian trading session. According to Alexei Korenev, investment company Finam’s analyst, these are the most important reports.

In Russia, ALROSA and Cherkizovo will release the operating figures. Urals IDGC, Unipro, Novatek, Polyus and NLMK will close the registers for dividends. MTS and ALROSA will trade with dividends for the last day, the analyst said.

Kravchuk said that Russian gold producers can benefit from the global market uncertainty and lead the Russian market.

End