Russian stock market plunge quickens towards close
MOSCOW. Nov 21 (Interfax) - The Russian stock market, which during the day Monday was seeking to hold a bit over 1400 points on the MICEX index, slumped by end-trading on negative U.S. market openings and the main Russian indices lost almost 5%.
The MICEX index ended the trading day down 4.8% at 1390.56 points and the RTS index lost 4.74% to 1424.97 points.
World markets are troubled by the unresolved European debt problems and the possibility that the U.S. 'super committee' will not find a way to cut that country's budget deficit. If deficit cuts are delayed, rating agencies could reduce the country's rating, which would send shock waves rippling across world markets.
Severstal lost 7.2% on the MICEX, VTB dropped 7%, Tatneft 6.8%, Surgutneftegas 5.9% (its preferred shares dropped 3.4%), Gazprom 5.7%, Rosneft 5.6%, Sberbank of Russia 5.2% (prefs down 5.4%), Uralkali 4.8%, Norilsk Nickel 4.8% also, RusHydro 4%, Lukoil 3.9%, Rostelecom 1.2%, Gazprom Neft 1.1%, FGC UES 0.8%, and Transneft prefs 0.7%.
Polyus Gold ended the day up 1.54% as investors used its stock as a bulwark against falling world markets.
Acron (up 1.52%) was also 'better than market' on expectations of good Q3 financials to be announced on November 22.
O2TV gained 34.26% to 3.2679 rubles per share on news the company plans to place 540 million additional shares at 5.7 rubles apiece. Buyers for the additional shares could be the Cyprus-based offshores Silvernight Holding Ltd., Stearway Ltd., and Streamball Trading Ltd. The holding plans to use the proceeds to acquire new media and information technology assets, to purchase video content, and to increase the channel's technical coverage with the inclusion of pay-TV.
Trading combined on the RTS Classic to $2.608 million, on the RTS Standard to $454.678 million, and to more than 63.438 billion rubles on the MICEX.