Weak oil, Chinese woes, US stock fall drag Russian stocks down

MOSCOW, Dec 11 (PRIME) -- Russian stocks decreased on Monday amid weakening of oil prices and a fall of Chinese and U.S. stocks, absorbing bad news after long New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays, analysts said.

The MICEX fell 3.78% to 1,682.54 and the RTS decreased 5.12% to 699.13.

Russian stocks fell due to weakening of oil prices, Mikhail Abramov, an analyst at Veles Capital, said.

“On Monday, the Russian stock market had to take upon itself all drawbacks, which were accumulated during the holidays,” Vasily Oleinik, an analyst at ITinvest, said. The indices fell on the back of strongest over many years sale-offs on foreign trading floors.

In particular, China’s Shanghai Composite plunged almost 15% within a week in line with the yuan devaluation, which undermined investors’ confidence in the Chinese economy, the analyst said. If China falls, the global demand for oil will be put under additional pressure.

The U.S. stock market also decreased by about 7% during the first trading week of 2016 that was another negative factor for Russian stocks, Oleinik said.

The fall of the dollar-denominated RTS was technically sped up by the ruble depreciation to above 76 against the U.S. dollar at the close. The national currency weakened on the back of a Brent price fall below $32.5 per barrel.

Russian leading gold producer Polyus Gold increased 5% to 3,030 rubles amid high prices for gold, Abramov said.

State-run oil major Rosneft fell 4.5% to 241.05 rubles amid the oil price fall, while private oil company Lukoil went down 5.05% to 2,257.9 rubles, the analyst said.

National top lender Sberbank decreased 6.01% to 91.03 rubles on the back of the ruble depreciation.

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

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Sberbank	-6.01	91.03	7.987
Gazprom	-3.35	131.38	4.489
Norilsk Nickel	-4.34	8600.00	3.024
Lukoil	-5.05	2257.90	2.271
Rosneft	-4.50	241.05	1.901

(72.9299 rubles – U.S. $1)

End