Russian stocks to open flat as investors wait for Brexit decisions

MOSCOW, Mar 27 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market will likely open neutrally on Wednesday as investors are wary of any moves tracking the Brexit events and the U.S.–China trade negotiations, analysts said.

“Investors are waiting for the Brexit events to unfold and for news on trade negotiations progress between the U.S. and China, as well as for any data to adjust their forecasts for global economic prospects,” Olma’s senior analyst Anton Startsev said.

Vitaly Manzhos, senior risk manager at investment company Algo Capital, said that the external background ahead the start of the session is weakly positive as the U.S. indices edged up by 0.2%, and the Brent futures by 0.2%. The gold futures eased by less than 0.1%, the Nikkei225 lost 0.4% and the Hang Seng grew 0.5%.

A new round of the U.S.–China negotiations will start on Thursday but according to Vadim Kravchuk, analyst at investment company Solid, the statements may start to be released on Friday.

The U.K. government has turned down a request to cancel the start of Brexit, signed by 5 million citizens.

Manzhos said that adoption of a bill on energy security and diversification by the U.S. House of Representatives, which envisages help to the states of the Central and Eastern Europe to reduce their dependence on Russian fuel, and preparation of a bill to investigate the Russian military presence in Venezuela are among the important political events for the Russian market.

According to Startsev, U.S. foreign trade surplus to be published at 3:30 p.m., Moscow time, will be the most important statistics release of the day.

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