Russian stocks seen rising on oil price recovery

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely increase at opening on Friday on the back of an oil price recovery, analysts said.

"We expect the Russian market to resume an upward trend and go above 2,260 in spite of some decrease of oil prices which happened yesterday after our closing," Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at financial platform Banki.ru, said.

According to the analyst, the market mood in the morning is moderately positive -- the leading Asian trading floors added up to 0.6%, except the Chinese market that fell 0.1%. The U.S. stock market futures decreased about 0.1%. The nearest Brent futures recover 0.7% to about U.S. $100 per barrel.

Alexei Antonov, head of Alor Broker’s investment consulting department, said that the Russian market would likely continue to consolidate because of a lack of drivers for the blue chips. The oil sector may erase losses partially in the first half of the day on the back of the oil price rise, while Gazprom will likely maintain marginal dynamics, as the Nord Stream gas pipeline is unlikely to be launched at full capacity soon.

Zvarich said that the market mood can deteriorate in the evening, as U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell will speak at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole. Investors will look wait for signals of future U.S. monetary policies and may lose interest to risky assets the next few sessions.

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