Saudi Arabia puts oil under pressure, Russian stocks fall

MOSCOW, Apr 1 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market decreased on Friday on the back of a falling oil price, pessimistic statistics and a weak ruble, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 0.77% to 1,856.77 and the RTS decreased 1.63% to 861.96.

“A sharp fall in demand for risky assets was caused by lower oil quotations caused by an unexpected statement of Saudi Arabia that the country will freeze oil production only if other oil producers, including Iran, will join this initiative,” Igor Kovalyov, an analyst at InstaForex, said.

Russian economic statistics also put stocks under pressure: the country’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) decreased to 48.3 in March from 49.3 in February, he said.

Irina Rogova, an analyst at Forex Club, said, “Iran has repeatedly said that it has no plans to join the agreement and will try to reach the level of oil output it had had before the sanctions. That raised doubts about concluding such a desirable agreement.”

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by a weak ruble.

The national currency depreciated against the dollar after the latter rose on the back of strong U.S. labor statistics, Rogova said.

Russian banks and oil producers decreased amid falling oil prices and the ruble, Kovalyov said. VTB Bank went down 2.84% to 0.0745 rubles and oil company Bashneft fell 2.11% to 2,555 rubles.

Vitaly Manzhos, a senior analyst at Bank Obrazovanie, said that metal exporters were the investors’ safe haven. Steel producer Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) increased 3.50% to 86.28 rubles, another steel maker Severstal grew 3.22% to 734.9 rubles and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) rose 2.09% to 22.5 rubles.

Below are the MICEX’ five most active stocks on Friday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-1.26	108.52	10.955
Gazprom	-0.37	147.20	5.323
Norilsk Nickel	-2.76	8460.00	3.922
Lukoil	+0.11	2625.00	3.496
Magnit	-0.76	10470.00	2.479

(67.8552 rubles – U.S. $1)

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