Russian stocks seen flat as oil price rebounds, foreign mkts fall

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will open neutrally on Wednesday because oil prices have started to recover after a Tuesday evening’s decrease but foreign markets are showing a negative trend, analysts said.

“The influence of the key factors which significantly affect the behavior of the Russian financial market is mixed today in the start of the day, in our estimates,” Oleg Shagov, head of investment company Solid’s research department, said.

“We expect a neutral opening of the Russian stock market in a zone of about 1,750 of the MICEX, and we do not rule out that this stock market indicator will close the gap which formed yesterday at the trading session’s opening,” Shagov said.

The Brent price was sagging on Tuesday in the evening after an announcement that Russia and Saudi Arabia can freeze the oil output at the January level on average in 2016 but according to UFS IC analyst Alexei Kozlov, oil has already returned to a moderately positive dynamics.

Brent grew 1.09% to U.S. $32.53 per barrel as of 9:09 a.m., Moscow time on Wednesday.

The U.S. S&P 500 index futures are decreasing, key Asian markets are in the red zone as well, which is a negative factor for Russian assets, Kozlov said.

The fact that Russia’s RTS closed above 700 on Tuesday, signifies that it will start to consolidate; there are no visible signs of strong trends in this index, Anton Startsev, senior analyst at investment company Olma, said.

Later on Wednesday, Russian investors will focus their attention on the publication of protocols of a U.S. Federal Reserve System meeting on January 26–27, Shagov said.

U.S. housing construction and industrial output figures will also be noteworthy for Russian traders, Startsev said.

On the corporate stage, Russia’s container shipping company TransContainer’s board of directors will hold a meeting, and mobile operator VimpelCom will post the 2015 financial report under International Financial Reporting Standards, which will most probably be the most important events on Wednesday, Shagov said.

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