Russian stocks sink on oil price fall, bad corporate news

MOSCOW, Jun 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock marked decreased on Thursday pressured by a slew of bad news from the U.S., including a pessimistic economic forecast by the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) chairman, an oil price decline and bad corporate news, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 1.49% to 2,743.80, and the RTS Index decreased 3.09% to 1,238.11.

"The domestic market slumped under the pressure of external negative and corporate news. The U.S. Fed predicted a decline of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 6.5% yesterday, which added to the pessimism after negative forecasts of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank. This means that hopes for raw material demand recovery must be postponed," Otkritie Broker’s senior analyst Andrei Kochetkov said.

He said that the U.S. said the number of people contracting COVID-19 increased, which made investors increasingly fearful of a second wave. Investors might also have started to worry about quitting of President Donald Trump, a financial asset-friendly president, as according to a CNN poll, Joe Biden defeated him as a favorite candidate for the next elections.

Valery Yemelyanov, analyst at Freedom Finance, said that the oil prices rose to U.S. $41.4 but retreated below $40 after the U.S. Energy Department said that fuel reserves grew by 5.7 million barrels to a new historical record of 537 million barrels.

The negative effect strengthened after a speech of U.S. Fed head Jerome Powell, who said that he did not rule out that it would take years for the economy to recover, the analyst said.  

Kochetkov said that Norilsk Nickel sank after major shareholder Vladimir Potanin offered to pay no interim dividends for 2020 and pay as small dividends for 2020 as possible.

Oil companies and metals producers lost most, he said.

Yelena Kozhukhokva, analyst at Veles Capital, said that Rosneft decreased on an ex-dividend date.

Magnit was one of the leaders, rising 0.23% as interest to retailers returned on the back of a general risk aversion.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’ five most active stocks on Thursday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Norilsk Nickel	-3.75	19482	15.943
Sberbank	-1.97	208.35	14.521
Gazprom	-2.48	196.74	9.658
Lukoil	+0.15	5350	7.637
Rosneft	-6.05	376.1	5.903

(68.6183 – U.S. $1)

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