Russian stocks follow exchanges abroad, commodities lower on Tues
MOSCOW. Dec 8 (Interfax) - The Russian stock market posted a substantial decline on Tuesday as markets worldwide fell amid a rating downgrade for Greece, concerns over Dubai World and weak industrial data from Germany. The RTS index closed down 2.62% to 1,353.23 points and the MICEX index shed 0.84% to close at 1,310.97 points.
Federal Grid Company led decliners after the rate of return on new capital as the company switches to RAB tariff regulation was reduced to 11% from 12% previously. Shares in the grid operator fell 5.1% on MICEX.
Lukoil lost 2.8% as the oil major's nine-month US GAAP results failed to meet market expectations.
Other decliners included Transneft , whose preferred stock fell 1.9% on MICEX, Rostelecom - down 1.9%, Rosneft - down 1.9%, Uralsvyazinform - down 1.8%, Sberbank Russia - down 1.7%, VTB - down 1.5%, RusHydro - down 0.8%, Tatneft - down 0.5% and Surgutneftegas - down 0.2%.
Advancers included MMC Norilsk Nickel , which gained 1.4%, Gazprom - up 0.7%, Severstal - up 0.4%, Polyus Gold - up 0.3% and Gazprom Neft - up 0.2%.
Volume totaled $9.986 million on RTS Classica, $535.566 million on the RTS Standard and 55.673 billion rubles on MICEX, led by Sberbank ordinary shares with 17.56 billion rubles.
RTS$#&: CHMF, FEES, GAZP, GMKN, HYDR, LKOH, PLZL, ROSN, RTKM, SBER, SIBN, SNGS, TATN, TRNF, URSI, VTBR