Russia's main stock market hit an all-time high on Friday, propelled by hopes prosecutors would be lenient towards key YUKOS owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently in jail facing tax and fraud charges.
Ending a week of almost daily record highs, the benchmark RTS index closed at 778.39, rising 0.56 percent on volume of $16.9 million, sapped by Easter holidays in the West.
"If not for investors' attraction for YUKOS shares, it is not clear how the day would have ended for the RTS, as other shares showed only modest growth," Maxim Shein, an analyst at BrokerCreditService brokerage said in a market comment.
On the RTS, YUKOS rose two percent to $15.3. On the more liquid MICEX, YUKOS was trading 1.44 percent up at 435.80 roubles by 1431 GMT.
Russia's second biggest oil firm LUKOIL edged up 0.15 percent to $32.95, but slipped 0.07 percent to 939 roubles on MICEX.
Surgutneftegaz added 0.64 percent to $0.789 on the RTS and 0.47 percent to 22.438 roubles on MICEX.
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