MOSCOW: Russia equities were higher at the close on Tuesday, as gains in the Manufacturing, Mining and Oil & Gas sectors propelled shares higher. At the close in Moscow, the MICEX rose 1.33%. The biggest gainers of the session on the MICEX were NOVATEK (MCX:NVTK), which rose 5.17% or 36.40 points to trade at 740.90 at the close. United Company Rusal Plc (MCX:RUAL) added 4.90% or 1.440 points to end at 30.800 and Yandex NV (MCX:YNDX) was up 4.17% or 54.00 points to 1349.00 in late trade. Biggest losers included GidroOGK-011D (MCX:HYDR), which lost 3.07% or 0.0326 points to trade at 1.0289 in late trade. Unipro (MCX:UPRO) declined 2.86% or 0.0840 points to end at 2.8500 and Akron (MCX:AKRN) shed 1.16% or 40.0 points to 3395.0. Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 125 to 83 and 27 ended unchanged on the Moscow Stock Exchange.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was down 1.77% to 22.760. In commodities trading, Gold for February delivery was down 0.26% or 3.15 to $1212.45 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 1.35% or 0.71 to hit $53.46 a barrel, while the March Brent oil contract rose 0.85% or 0.47 to trade at $55.70 a barrel. USD/RUB was down 0.50% to 59.2073, while EUR/RUB fell 0.71% to 63.636. The US Dollar Index was up 0.16% at 100.11.
