Russian stocks seen flat on oil price, US market volatility

MOSCOW, Dec 30 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks are likely to open flat on Wednesday because both oil prices and the U.S. stock market indicators were rising on Tuesday but now they are erasing the gains, analysts said.

“The general influence of the key external factors which define to a significant extent the behavior of the Russian financial market is close to neutral today in the beginning of the day, under our estimates,” Oleg Shagov, head of investment company Solid’s research department, said.

The MICEX will likely open at 1,760–1,765, he said. The RTS will continue consolidation in the range of 750–800, Olma senior analyst Anton Startsev said.

The Russian market is expected to increase slowly during the day on the back of higher oil prices and U.S. stocks increase on Tuesday at the trading session closing, UFS IC’s analyst Alexei Kozlov said.

Brent was rising on Tuesday but fell 1.16% to U.S. $37.35 per barrel as of 9:05 a.m. Moscow time on Wednesday. U.S. stock market futures are slightly correcting downwards.

Wednesday will be the last full-scale trading day in Moscow before the New Year holidays. The trends in some securities can be surprising as investors want to reappraise their portfolios, Shagov said.

Market players might start taking their profit in the evening, and some decrease is possible as well, Finam analyst Bogdan Zvarich said.

Any dynamics will face a low trade volume before the holidays and will be unstable, Startsev said.

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