The Russian stock market quickly recovered from a brief nosedive after two terrorist attacks of the Moscow subway and demonstrated confident growth, the business media reported on Tuesday.
The blasts occurred during the early morning rush hour on Monday on the Sokolnicheskaya line of the Moscow subway, killing at least 39 people and injuring some 70.
The first attack took place at around 8:00am (04:00 GMT) at the Lubyanka station near the former KGB headquarters, which now houses the Federal Security Service. The second bomb detonated some 40 minutes later four stops along the same subway line at Park Kultury station, which is within walking distance of the Kremlin.
The index of the ruble-denominated MICEX opened down 0.2% while the dollar-denominated RTS declined 0.3% in the first minute of trading on Monday, despite favorable conditions on global trading floors.
However, 15 minutes later, both indexes rebounded, with the MICEX gaining 0.02% to 1,416.04 points and the RTS rising 0.01% to 1,519.98 points as of 10:51 a.m. Moscow time (06:51 GMT).
The MICEX index closed 1.74% up from Friday's close on Monday at 1,440.20 points while the RTS grew as much as 2.09% to 1,551.57 points.
"If, in the future, terrorist attacks are not aimed at destroying the infrastructure of markets, oil pipelines, electric power stations and dams, their effect on stock prices will be limited," newspaper Vedomosti quoted Andrei Vernikov, deputy general director of Zerich Capital Management, as saying.
The Russian foreign exchange market was also stable on Monday. After jumping 0.6% or 17 kopeks against the ruble at the opening of the trading session on Monday to 29.8 rubles following the news of the terrorist attacks, the greenback swiftly returned to its Friday's closing level, Kommersant reported.
"Exporters resumed foreign exchange sales and everything went on as usual," the paper quoted Denis Korshilov, head of the Citibank department for conversion transactions, as saying.
The dollar closed down 7 kopeks to 29.56 rubles on Monday, the paper said.
MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti)
