MOSCOW: Russia stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Mining, Telecoms and Oil & Gas sectors led shares lower. At the close in Moscow, the MICEX fell 0.20%. The best performers of the session on the MICEX were ANK Bashneft OAO Pref (MCX:BANE_p), which rose 4.90% or 55.5 points to trade at 1187.0 at the close. Meanwhile, Ros Agro PLC (MCX:AGRODR) added 2.53% or 17 points to end at 688 and Unipro (MCX:UPRO) was up 2.29% or 0.0590 points to 2.6370 in late trade. The worst performers of the session were Gruppa LSR PAO (MCX:LSRG), which fell 4.30% or 37.5 points to trade at 835.0 at the close. SG mechel (MCX:MTLR) declined 3.24% or 4.97 points to end at 148.22 and MegaFon OAO (MCX:MFON) was down 1.80% or 10.70 points to 583.60. Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Moscow Stock Exchange by 108 to 83 and 22 ended unchanged.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was up 0.59% to 25.580. Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.82% or 10.60 to $1283.50 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 1.43% or 0.75 to hit $51.66 a barrel, while the June Brent oil contract fell 1.51% or 0.83 to trade at $54.06 a barrel. USD/RUB was up 0.44% to 56.4886, while EUR/RUB rose 0.55% to 60.466. The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.28% at 99.69.
