Russian stocks seen neutral as oil price edges up, US futures fall

MOSCOW, Oct 29 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely open with marginal changes on Friday, because a negative U.S. futures' trend will be offset by firming oil prices, analysts said.

"I expect neutral opening of the market. The week was not easy. The prospects of the Brent oil reaching a U.S. $100 notch faded yesterday, after the U.S. said its economic growth decelerated in the third quarter to 2% after 6.7% in the second quarter," 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 external background ahead of the start of the Russian session was not positive because the U.S. futures lost about 0.25%, and industrial and precious metals decreased. An oil price increase of 0.3% will probably prevent sales.

The MOEX Russia Index will likely price in Thursday’s increase of the U.S. stock market indices in the morning and resume a decline, he said. He added that the support level for the index was slightly above 4,050.

According to Antonov, the oil price correction reasons – poor U.S. reserves statistics and the start of the nuclear deal negotiations between Iran and the E.U – are not fundamental since there is still big deficit on the oil market, and the OPEC plus do not plan to raise output significantly.

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