MOSCOW, May 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russian stocks failed to continue positive trend, while on Tuesday MICEX ruble indicator grew 1.71% to 1320.5 and the dollar index of RTS stepped up 2.68% to 1172.91 points.
Already this morning RTS index fell by 0.37% to 1168.6 points, while MICEX decreased by 0.36% to 1313.86 points. It is not surprising taking into account that the global stock markets fell sharply yesterday amid investors’ fears about the recent developments in Ukraine.
The US dollar fell 0.48 percent to a six and a half month low against a basket of currencies.
Today the downward trend continued with Asian stocks falling. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 1.3 percent to 137.12 as of 11:58 a.m. in Tokyo while Japan's Nikkei lost 2.5 percent. This might lead to the regional equities benchmark index experiencing its biggest drop in seven weeks.
Markets in Asia react to the fall on Wall Street and a concern is that China’s economy is slowing. For the fourth consecutive month, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index remained below the 50 level, which means that the manufacturing activity in China is slowing down.
The situation is expected to affect European shares as well, when the markets open later today.
In the commodities markets oil prices went up as a result of a decrease in crude stocks.
