Russia shares higher at close of trade; MOEX Russia up 0.42%

Investing.com – Russia equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Telecoms , Manufacturing and Mining sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Moscow, the MOEX Russia gained 0.42%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the MOEX Russia were MegaFon OAO (MCX: MFON ), which rose 2.98% or 15.40 points to trade at 531.40 at the close. NMTP (MCX: NMTP ) added 2.64% or 0.2250 points to end at 8.7450 and Sberbank Rossii PAO (MCX: SBER ) was up 2.60% or 6.70 points to 264.50 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Surgut (MCX: SNGS ), which lost 5.15% or 1.560 points to trade at 28.740 in late trade. Surgut-pref (MCX: SNGS_p ) declined 3.31% or 1.015 points to end at 29.685 and GidroOGK-011D (MCX: HYDR ) shed 3.27% or 0.0245 points to 0.7255.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 128 to 100 and 17 ended unchanged on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

The Russian VIX , which measures the implied volatility of MOEX Russia options, was up 0.83% to 19.500.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.43% or 5.80 to $1341.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in March rose 0.29% or 0.19 to hit $64.69 a barrel, while the April Brent oil contract rose 0.38% or 0.26 to trade at $68.78 a barrel.

USD/RUB was down 0.33% to 56.1985, while EUR/RUB fell 0.04% to 69.8800.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.18% at 88.86.