MOSCOW: Russia stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Oil & Gas, Manufacturing and Mining sectors led shares higher. At the close in Moscow, the MICEX rose 0.31% to hit a new 6-months low. The best performers of the session on the MICEX were Megion (MCX:MFGS), which rose 5.83% or 30.0 points to trade at 545.0 at the close. Meanwhile, Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya OAO (MCX:TRMK) added 4.80% or 3.74 points to end at 81.60 and Inter rao ees (MCX:IRAO) was up 1.96% or 0.0755 points to 3.9365 in late trade. The worst performers of the session were SG mechel (MCX:MTLR), which fell 5.35% or 7.85 points to trade at 138.75 at the close. RusHydro JSC (MCX:HYDR) declined 3.55% or 0.0291 points to end at 0.7909 and FSK EES (MCX:FEES) was down 2.16% or 0.0035 points to 0.1587. Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Moscow Stock Exchange by 124 to 68 and 24 ended unchanged.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was up 0.11% to 27.280. Gold Futures for August delivery was down 1.03% or 13.36 to $1279.84 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0.35% or 0.16 to hit $45.88 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract rose 0.15% or 0.07 to trade at $48.13 a barrel. USD/RUB was down 0.45% to 56.8318, while EUR/RUB fell 0.29% to 63.9030. The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.28% at 96.94.
