MOSCOW: Russia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Telecoms, Mining and Oil & Gas sectors propelled shares lower. At the close in Moscow, the MICEX fell 0.29%. The biggest gainers of the session on the MICEX were Yandex NV (MCX:YNDX), which rose 3.12% or 39.00 points to trade at 1291.00 at the close. Inter rao ees (MCX:IRAO) added 2.93% or 0.1210 points to end at 4.2510 and GidroOGK-011D (MCX:HYDR) was up 2.09% or 0.0191 points to 0.9345 in late trade.
Biggest losers included NLMK ao (MCX:NLMK), which lost 3.33% or 3.86 points to trade at 112.14 in late trade. Akron (MCX:AKRN) declined 2.86% or 100.0 points to end at 3395.0 and MosEnrg (MCX:MSNG) shed 1.80% or 0.0450 points to 2.4550. Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 102 to 97 and 23 ended unchanged on the Moscow Stock Exchange.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was down 2.88% to 23.910. In commodities trading, Gold for February delivery was down 0.62% or 7.35 to $1173.95 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0.71% or 0.38 to hit $54.14 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.60% or 0.34 to trade at $57.23 a barrel. USD/RUB was up 0.17% to 59.5473, while EUR/RUB fell 0.08% to 62.861. The US Dollar Index was up 0.56% at 101.96.
