OREANDA-NEWS. August 15, 2011. IMF to visit Ukraine. An IMF mission headed by Mr. Thanos Arvanitis will be in Ukraine from August 29 until September 9 in order to continue its review of Ukraine\"s cooperation with the IMF\"s Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and to discuss the country\"s currency policy. The Ukrainian government expects to obtain two tranches at once, as the IMF decided not to disburse a loan in March 2011. Despite some controversy, Ukraine\"s chances of receiving the next tranche remain quite high.

Equity market. Last week, stock markets all over the world experienced one of the most dramatic sell-offs in recent years. During the second half of the week, positive signals from foreign exchanges led to several instances where it seemed the indicator would rebound, but these were short lived. The Ukrainian Exchange index finished above the previous day\"s closing for the first time on Friday. Overall, the UX index dropped to 1823, having lost 14.4% over the course of the week. The indicator dropped to its lowest level since October 2010. Increased uncertainty led to a spike in trading activity on the derivatives market, where trading volume reached UAH 1.15 bln (USD 144.3 mln). Meanwhile, trading on the spot market increased only modestly and amounted to UAH 1.1 bln (USD 138 mln).

Krymenergo (KREN) and Zaporizhia Abrasives (ZABR) were the poorest performing stocks on the market, with share value dropping 47.5% and 35.0% respectively. Not a single stock in the UX index finished the week in the green zone. Meanwhile, the worst performing stocks in the index basket were Avdiivka Coke (AVDK; BUY) and Ukrsotsbank (USCB; BUY), which lost 21.8% and 20.6% respectively. Alchevsk Iron and Steel (ALMK; HOLD) was the most traded equity on the order-driven market, with 8451 transactions conducted for UAH 211.9 mln (USD 26.6 mln). As a result of trading, the company\"s stock dropped 17.3% during the week.

Dniproenergo (DNEN; BUY) was among the week\"s best performing stocks, having advanced 7%. The bulk of the growth occurred on August 12, with trading the rest of the week being fairly steady.