Russian stock market opens lower - 8 January, 2003

Amid a considerable decrease in oil prices, the trade on the Russian stock market opened lower after the holidays. First of all it concerns shares of oil companies. In particular, LUKoil securities dropped by 2.6 percent, YUKOS went down by 1.86 percent and Sibneft eased back by 2.84 percent in the first minutes of the trade at MICEX.

This drop in Russian oil stocks was an unpleasant surprise. Analysts expect that the RTS index will again drop below 360 points on the RTS index with this background today. Decreasing futures of US stock indices might also have negatively influenced the market. However, the oil factor is the most important factor for the market at present, specialists stress.