MOSCOW: Russia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Oil & Gas, Telecoms and Power sectors led shares higher. At the close in Moscow, the MICEX added 0.66%. The best performers of the session on the MICEX were AK Transneft OAO Pref (MCX:TRNF_p), which rose 7.98% or 15600 points to trade at 211100 at the close. Meanwhile, Polymetal International PLC (MCX:POLY) added 3.73% or 27.00 points to end at 750.00 and FSK EES (MCX:FEES) was up 3.59% or 0.0068 points to 0.1948 in late trade.
The worst performers of the session were Magnit (MCX:MGNT), which fell 2.98% or 290.0 points to trade at 9440.0 at the close. NMTP (MCX:NMTP) declined 2.88% or 0.1800 points to end at 6.0700 and Tatneft OAO Pref (MCX:TATN_p) was down 2.14% or 4.50 points to 206.00. Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Moscow Stock Exchange by 114 to 92 and 24 ended unchanged.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was down 3.94% to 22.890. Gold Futures for April delivery was up 0.28% or 3.45 to $1249.95 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 0.21% or 0.10 to hit $48.14 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.35% or 0.18 to trade at $50.78 a barrel. USD/RUB was up 0.25% to 57.8400, while EUR/RUB rose 0.21% to 62.494. The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.15% at 99.40.