Russian stocks to open flat due to Good Friday lull in West

MOSCOW, Apr 14 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks are likely to open flat on Friday as the market has no drivers for any kind of movement due to the Good Friday at the West, analysts said.

“The ultimate influence of the key factors that are of significant importance for the mood of the Russian stock market is close to neutral at the beginning of the day. Major European and U.S. bourses (including mercantile exchanges) are closed today due to Good Friday. Major Asian stock indicators are showing moderately negative dynamics,” Oleg Shagov, head of investment company Solid’s research department, said.

“We expect the Russian stock market to open close to 1,945 of the MICEX index and suppose that it will continue fluctuating around the current levels during the day due to a scarce news flow and a low activity of investors.”

Anton Manayev, head of the trade operations department at investment company Olma, said that technical analysis shows no chance of either the RTS or the MICEX indices leaving the “descending canal.”

“The external background is neutral at the beginning of the day. There are no drivers for a significant rebound or contraction in the RTS index, or in the ruble–U.S. dollar pair,” Manayev said.

But Bogdan Zvarich, an analyst at investment company Finam, said that the Thursday contraction of the Dow Jones and S&P500 together with the morning decrease of Nikkei225 and Shanghai Composite will prompt sales on the Russian stock market in the first minutes of Friday trade.

“Later in the day, the absence of trade in the U.S. and Europe…will result in our indices fluctuating around the current levels. We expect lower investor activity and a combined volume of trade on the basis of the lack of drivers,” Zvarich said.

Shagov also said that local investors will track the release of operating results by steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), while Manayev said that the U.S. is to publish data on retail sales and the consumer price index during the day, and that may also affect the local market.

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