The collapse of oil prices, panic sales and an attempt to win back losses in the second half of the month are the events that investors remember August. What caused the decline and whether the markets will continue to grow, Konstantin Tserazov, Deputy Head of Global Markets at Troika Dialog, told in our interview.
August made investors pretty nervous. The MICEX index fell by 9.3% over the month, the RTS index lost 12%. The reason for the collapse was the announcement by Standard & Poor's about the reduction of the US credit rating from "AAA" to "AA +" with a forecast of a further downgrade. Our market reacted with panic sales, and the decline in world oil prices was a blow to the market.
Konstantin Vladimirovich Tserazov: “A favorable external background will allow the Russian market to show growth, at least in the short term, and remove overbought”
The second half of August passed under the sign of stabilization. According to businessman Konstantin Tserazov, the speeches of US Federal Reserve Chairman B. Bernanke added optimism to investors, the markets took his speech as a promise of another easing program. The positive was the growth of oil prices, which fixed by the end of the month above $110 per barrel of Brent.
In August, Rostelecom's papers were in the greatest demand on the news about the inclusion of shares in the MSCI index, as well as shares of oil companies against the backdrop of rising prices for hydrocarbons. Not bad growth was shown by the papers of Sberbank, as well as NLMK and Uralkali.
The papers of oil sector companies will remain among the favorites in September, the expert believes. In particular, Konstantin Vladimirovich Tserazov recommends that investors pay attention to Lukoil, which in August released a strong report on the results of the first half of 2011. The papers of Gazprom and Rosneft are also interesting. Among metallurgists, the expert noted the shares of NLMK, as well as PolyusZoloto and Polymetal, whose attractiveness is due to the growth in world prices for precious metals.
In September, the markets will be supported by expectations of new stimulus programs from the US Federal Reserve. Favorable external background will allow the Russian market to show growth, at least in the short term, and remove overbought. “We do not expect unbridled growth, but we predict a systematic recovery of domestic indices after the August collapse in the framework of global trends,” Konstantin Tserazov concluded.
Photo: Troika Dialog press service