Russian stocks to drop as EU retains sanctions, US markets fall

MOSCOW, Oct 1 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will decline at Wednesday opening as the E.U. leaders decided on Tuesday to keep sanctions against Moscow, while U.S. stock indices fell, analysts said.

“The Russian stock market will open with a decrease. A slide of U.S. stock indices and oil price quotations on the commodities markets will contribute to a downward gap of within 1% at the domestic market’s opening,” Denis Khripushin, analyst at 2trade.ru, said.

The U.S.’ S&P 500 decreased 0.28%, and the Dow Jones declined 0.17% on Tuesday on the back of consumer confidence fall in September, analysts said.

On Tuesday, the Brent oil price breached a U.S. $96 per barrel support level and hit its rock bottom for two years, Promsvyazbank’s senior analyst Oleg Shagov said. On Wednesday, the Brent price rebounded 0.33% to $95.08 per barrel at 9.15 a.m. Moscow time.

The E.U. decided to retain full-scale sanctions against Russia. Next time, the tapering of anti-Moscow measures will be considered in October, which is slightly disappointing for Russian investors, Shagov said.

Russian traders will wait for releases of Europe and the U.S. business activity indices and for the U.S.’ ADP employment statistics, Olma’s senior analyst Anton Startsev said.

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