Russian stocks slump on shrinking oil prices, negative environment

MOSCOW, Apr 15 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks contracted on Wednesday as an oil price slump, an International Monetary Fund’s prediction of a global economic disaster and poor U.S. economic statistics prompted sales, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index fell 5.05% to 2,498.94 and the RTS decreased 7.62% to 1,046.88.

“All risky and commodity assets are under pressure now. The oil price fell by 7.5%, trading in the range of U.S. $27–27.5. The pressure on them strengthened after the release of weekly U.S. oil reserves, which were significantly higher than last week and market expectations -- they grew by 19.2 million barrels against 11.7 million barrels as consensus forecasts expected,” Valery Yemelyanov, analyst at investment company Freedom Finance, said.

As a result, it was very difficult for the RTS Index to stay around 1,050, Yemelyanov said.

“Among the positive local news one can see only the fact that the growth of prices for buckwheat, eggs, and sugar has slowed down. The other statements are connected to the promises to help and give money to everyone…sometime later. The Russian stock market is in a tailspin meanwhile…while the IMF managed to instill fear of the deepest recession ever into the markets,” Yaroslav Kabakov, director for strategy at investment company Finam, said.

“Speaking about more tangible statistics, U.S. retail sales plummeted by 8.7% in March, and industrial output fell by 5.4%. U.S. President Donald Trump will have to face the music again and flood the markets with liquidity, otherwise the stock indices will nosedive again, repeating the March fall.”

Andrei Kochetkov, senior analyst at Otkritie Broker, said that contraction of oil prices spurred sales in Russian oil companies. Rosneft lost 7.16%, Lukoil contracted by 7.43%, and Tatneft decreased by 7.93%.

The banking sector suffered from similar losses, as banks will have to carry an additional burden in April–June from the credit holidays under several state support programs, Kochetkov said. Sberbank shrank by 5.73%, while VTB Bank went down by 6.14%.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-5.73	186.07	18.671
Lukoil	-7.43	4484.00	12.179
Gazprom	-3.08	184.25	9.962
Norilsk Nickel	-5.10	19646.00	6.813
Rosneft	-7.16	307.25	6.245

(73.3150 rubles – U.S. $1)

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