Russian stocks seen growing on high oil prices, weakening ruble

MOSCOW, Jul 31 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely to increase at opening on Monday, because the oil prices remained high in spite of a correction, while the ruble weakened, analysts said.

"The predominance of purchases in the Russian shares can remain today at the start of trade. The Brent oil consolidation in the upper half of the U.S. $ 80–85 range supports the shares. The market can consolidate above 3,000 in these conditions and continue upward dynamics," Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at Banki.ru, said.

The ruble weakened in the morning as the end of the tax period on July 28 reduced support from the exporters, he said.

Zvarich characterized the global market mood before the start of the trading session in Russia as mixed. The leading Asian trading floors added up to 1.2%, the key U.S. indices futures retrenched up to 0.2%. The Brent oil futures lost 0.4% to slightly above $84.

Vladislav Antonov, financial analyst at BitRiver, said that the MOEX Russia Index could continue growing but was strongly overheated. He estimated the daily range of the index at 2,980–3,015.

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