Stocks can fall on profit taking ahead of weekend, Ukraine woes

MOSCOW, Feb 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian stock market can open lower on Friday to price in Thursday’s news on the Russia–Ukraine conflict ahead of the weekend, analysts said.

"Almost all Russian blue chips fell in the morning session. It's hard to say whether the global mood will improve and whether the decline will be erased. But let's not forget that it's Friday, and the MOEX Russia Index closed mostly with losses for the last three months ahead of the weekends," Alor Broker senior analyst Alexei Antonov said.

He added that on Thursday, the markets ignored "the conversation of a deaf with a blind", as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a meeting with his U.K. colleague Liz Truss. The market also shrugged off the fact that Ukraine gathered all battle-worthy troops to the borders of the self-proclaimed republics on the east.    

The Russian central bank will most probably raise the key rate by 1 percentage point on Friday, but this is priced in by the stock market, but the ruble can decrease, triggering a fall of the RTS. If the ruble decreases significantly, further key rate raises will become imminent.

Andrei Vernikov, head of investment company’s Univer Capital department for investment analysis and education, said that global inflation was worrying, because there are no signs that the growth acceleration stopped. President of the U.S. Federal Reserve System for Saint Louis Jim Bullard said on Thursday that he would be happy if the Fed raised the rate by only 1% by July.

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