‘The drop of RTS index on Friday cannot be solely explained by the Prime Minister’s unfavorable remarks on Mechel’s pricing policies. I feel the uninspiring statistics (typical of the current state of the global economy in general) had the main part to play. One must realize that the Russian stock market was bound to do badly anyway as long as we still depend on the U.S. market’s success,’ says Eurogreen’s General Director Evgeniy Kostarev.

RTS index dropped below 2,000 points on July 25, 2008, coming to 1,994.35 points at 11 AM on Friday morning (Moscow time).

Evgeniy Kostarev reports the market tends to react to bad news only at the moment, which is why Vladimir Putin’s comments made their impact on the stock market quotations, but this impact was not dramatic.