Russian stock market reversing early losses
MOSCOW. Aug 4 (Interfax) - Russian share prices have started to rise following early losses on the back of yesterday's drop on Wall Street and the first retreat in the Asian markets for three days overnight.
Buoyed by still-high oil prices, the MICEX stock index was up 0.36% to 1417.28 and the RTS had gained 0.15% to 1519.89 by 11:15 a.m. Benchmark stocks gained by up to 1%, led by Sberbank prefs, which rallied 2.3% to 61.12 rubles a share in hefty volume of 1.92 billion rubles, indicating that a major buyer had appeared in this sector.
There were also gains for Gazprom (+0.5%), Gazprom Neft (+0.3%), Lukoil (+0.4%), Polyus Gold (+0.3%), Rosneft (RTS: RTS: ROSN) (+0.2%), Rostelecom (RTS; RTKM) (+0.3%) and Surgutneftegas (+0.6%).
However there were losses for VTB (-0.2%), MMC Norilsk Nickel (-0.03%), Sberbank ordinary shares (-0.1%) and Tatneft (-0.02%).