Russian stocks to fall at opening as coronavirus epidemics expands

MOSCOW, Feb 25 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks are likely to fall on Tuesday morning as the market will price in the Monday’s slump on all major foreign bourses over spreading coronavirus, analysts said.

“Today, the majority of liquid securities is likely to open the day with a fall. The global stock indices slumped on Monday as worry about the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV virus worsened. The traders were worried about the increase in the number of infected in South Korea and Italy. The Russian shares are yet to price in this factor as the Russian bourses did not trade yesterday,” investment company Olma’s senior analyst Anton Startsev said.

The U.S. stock indices lost 3.3–3.7% on Monday, while the European indices were deeply in the red zone, and the Asian floors traded mixed on Tuesday morning, Startsev said.

“Our stock market will start the day lower on Tuesday after a long weekend taking into account the ADR trading on Monday and taking into account the worries about further contraction,” Nikolai Podlevskikh, head of the research department at investment company Zerich Capital Management, said.

Besides the global stock markets, the coronavirus news also hurt the oil market, which started the Monday trade with a 5% contraction, and only managed to regain 2% at the end of the day, Podlevskikh said.

“The main reason for such a significant contraction is anxiety about the slowdown of the global economy caused by the coronavirus. Preliminary data already shows significant losses of the Chinese economy, but the main shock will happen when the results of February will be calculated, and tge results of the first quarter after that,” he said.

“We expect our market to open with an about 3% contraction today. The level of 3,050 of the MOEX Russia Index is unlikely to hold against the sales, and this level is the lower threshold of a mixed trend. This is why the nerves or stop trades of many people are likely to snap,” Alor Broker’s analyst Alexei Antonov said.

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