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Russian stock indices in the red as week’s trading closes

The yuan-to-ruble rate rose by 12.3 kopecks in a day, to 13.354 rubles

MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/. The Russian stock indices were in the red by the end of trading session on the Moscow Exchange on Friday.

By the end of the day, the MOEX index fell by 0.65% to 2,948.1 points, the dollar-denominated RTS index went down by 0.46% to 949.5 points.

The yuan-to-ruble rate rose by 12.3 kopecks in a day, to 13.354 rubles.

"By the evening sales prevailed. Apparently, the reasons for that were the coming weekend, the strong ruble and the lack of geopolitical positivity," said Alexander Shepelev, an expert on the stock market at BCS World of Investments.

The situation on the international markets on Friday was relatively calm - European and American stock indices were slightly up. Brent oil was at a level just below $76, and among other things, the strong dollar is putting pressure on commodity prices; the DXY index of the American currency today added more than 0.5% above 108 points, the expert added.

On Friday, the leaders of growth were shares of Pharmsintez (+3.51%), MOEX (+0.66%), VTB (+0.42%), Lukoil (+0.38%) and LSR (+0.16%) by the end of the session.

"The shares of Pharmsintez (+3.3%) turned out to be the leader, probably amid reports of an outbreak of a rare dangerous disease in India and expectations of a certain reaction from the Russian pharmaceutical company," leading analyst of Freedom Finance Global Natalia Milchakova said.

The leaders of decline by the end of the session were securities of Severstal (-4.27%), DVMP (-3.58%), Ozon (-2.86%), NLMK (-2.54%), NMTP (-2.5%), and MKB (-2.39%).

The BCS World of Investments forecast for the MOEX index for February 3 is 2,875-3,025 points. A small rollback of the ruble is possible from the first days of February - the yuan may rise to 13.5 rubles, the dollar - to 99 rubles, and the euro - to 104 rubles, the company believes.

According to Freedom Finance Global's expectations, on Monday the MOEX index will trade in the range of 2,900 - 3,000 points, the forecast for the dollar, euro and yuan to ruble exchange rate on February 3 is 97-99.5 rubles, 102-104.5 rubles and 13.5-13.9 rubles, respectively.

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