Investing.com – Russia equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Telecoms and Manufacturing sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in Moscow, the MICEX lost 0.43%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the MICEX were DIXY Group ao (MCX:DIXY), which rose 5.53% or 14.60 points to trade at 278.40 at the close. Trubnaya Metallurgicheskaya Kompaniya OAO (MCX:TRMK) added 3.99% or 2.10 points to end at 54.70 and NLMK ao (MCX:NLMK) was up 2.22% or 1.70 points to 78.11 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Bashneft ANK ao (MCX:BANE), which lost 3.61% or 97.5 points to trade at 2603.0 in late trade. Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) declined 1.80% or 2.64 points to end at 144.30 and United Company Rusal Plc (MCX:RUAL) shed 1.76% or 0.450 points to 25.100.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 139 to 93 and 21 ended unchanged on the Moscow Stock Exchange.
The Russian VIX, which measures the implied volatility of MICEX options, was up 5.96% to 43.410.
In commodities trading, Gold for April delivery was down 1.04% or 13.30 to $1259.50 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 2.09% or 0.79 to hit $38.63 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 0.77% or 0.31 to trade at $40.36 a barrel.
USD/RUB was down 2.36% to 69.7411, while EUR/RUB fell 2.37% to 77.786.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.02% at 96.17.