The stock market managed to grow on Gazprom and oil shares on Thursday amid rising oil prices and a positive opening of trading in the US, the MICEX index closed above 1530 points. Following the trading results, the MICEX index rose to 1530.93 points (+0.28%), the RTS index amounted to 1676.27 points (+0.17%); the prices of most "blue chips" on the exchanges increased by 0.1-2.1%.

On the MICEX Stock Exchange, shares of Gazprom (+2.1%), Gazprom Neft (+0.9%), Norilsk Nickel (+0.9%), Lukoil (+1.1%), Polyus Gold (+0.9%), Tatneft (+0.1%), and Surgutneftegaz (+0.6%) grew.

Sberbank published a report under RAS for the first quarter, according to which net profit increased 144 times to 43.2 billion rubles from 0.3 billion rubles. However, the bank's ordinary shares increased in price by only 0.1%, while preferred shares fell by 1.9% (the registers of Sberbank and VTB shareholders close on April 16). The share price of Rosneft (-0.2%), Rostelecom (-0.7%), and Transneft (-3.8%) also decreased.

On Thursday, indices in Asia rose, with the opening of trading in the US the external situation improved – the European FTSE index added 0.6%, the American S&P 500 index rose by 0.2%.

The statistics released in the US on Thursday turned out to be mixed. The New York Empire Manufacturing index was better than expected (in April it rose to 31.86 points, while growth to 24 points was predicted). Meanwhile, the number of applications for unemployment benefits last week increased by 24,000 and reached the maximum level since February 20 (a decrease of 20,000 was expected), and the figures on the volume of industrial production in the US in March were also worse than expected. On the oil market, prices continued to grow moderately, provoked by data on the reduction of oil and gasoline reserves in the US. The price of June futures contracts for WTI by 18.45 Moscow time was $86.91 per barrel (+0.21%).

Market Review: Growth Resumes