Russian stocks to grow as US Fed says to taper econ support mildly

MOSCOW, Jun 19 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will increase on Thursday because late on Wednesday, Moscow time, the U.S. Federal Reserve System (Fed) promised to keep low interest rates for a long period of time, analysts said.

“The Russian market may continue growing today in the beginning of the trading session, reacting to the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting results which turned out to be not so negative as many investors used to think,” Olma analyst Dmitry Lobanov said.

The Fed will taper the quantitative easing by another U.S. $10 billion but the interest rates will remain near zero even after the bond buying ends.

One of the meeting’s results was the strengthening of the ruble against the U.S. dollar, which will support the Russian market growth, Lobanov said.

Asian markets rose on Thursday morning with the Nikkei 225 increasing 1.56% to 15.352.28, and the Hang Seng adding 0.30% to 23,250.37 as of 9.25 a.m., Moscow time, which will trigger rise on the Russian market as well, Promsvyazbank senior analyst Oleg Shagov said.

Brent went up 0.37% to $114.56 per barrel at 9.27 a.m., Moscow time, and this is another significant supporting factor for Russian bulls, Shagov said.

The U.K. retail sales, the U.S. jobless claims, leading indicators and Philadelphia Fed survey will be in the focus of Russian investors’ attention on Thursday, he said.

End