Russia shares higher at close of trade; MOEX Russia up 1.81%

Investing.com – Russia equities were higher at the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Oil & Gas , Power and Mining sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Moscow, the MOEX Russia gained 1.81%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the MOEX Russia were Gazprom PAO (MCX: GAZP ), which rose 7.66% or 11.78 points to trade at 165.58 at the close. AFK Sistema (MCX: AFKS ) added 6.11% or 0.475 points to end at 8.245 and X5 Retail Group NV (MCX: FIVEDR ) was up 3.96% or 65.5 points to 1721.5 in late trade.

Biggest losers included NLMK ao (MCX: NLMK ), which lost 1.34% or 2.16 points to trade at 159.04 in late trade. MMK (MCX: MAGN ) declined 1.33% or 0.620 points to end at 45.880 and SG mechel (MCX: MTLR ) shed 0.96% or 0.87 points to 90.17.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 129 to 79 and 19 ended unchanged on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

The Russian VIX , which measures the implied volatility of MOEX Russia options, was down 4.58% to 27.110.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0.02% or 0.20 to $1220.10 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in January fell 0.08% or 0.04 to hit $51.52 a barrel, while the February Brent oil contract fell 0.28% or 0.17 to trade at $60.23 a barrel.

USD/RUB was up 0.25% to 67.2255, while EUR/RUB rose 0.10% to 75.8482.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.09% at 97.365.