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By Bloomberg

OAO Sberbank rose to a two-week high, helping lead a second straight gain in U.S.-traded Russian stocks, as the central bank’s fourth interest-rate reduction this year and a stronger ruble boosted the outlook for the lender.

The American depositary receipts rallied 5.1 percent to $5.49 in New York. The Bloomberg Russia-US Equity Index gained 0.7 percent. The gauge of the country’s most-traded stocks in New York has advanced 1.4 percent in the past two days as the latest reduction set the central bank’s key rate at 11.5 percent. Policy makers had raised it to as high as 17 percent in December. The ruble gained 1.3 percent against the dollar.

“Sberbank is outperforming the market on the stronger ruble and the central bank’s rate cut,” Vadim Bit-Avragim, a money manager at Kapital Asset Management LLC in Moscow, which oversees 175.4 billion rubles ($3.3 billion), said by e-mail on Tuesday.

The company’s ADRs have jumped more than 11 percent from a two-month low on June 8 as concern eased that higher interest rates combined with sanctions linked to the Ukraine conflict and a slump in oil, Russia’s biggest export, will erode the state- run lender’s profits. The Moscow-traded shares sell for 7 times projected 12-month earnings, the cheapest among 16 global peers, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Surgut, Gazprom

ADRs linked to the preferred shares of OAO Surgutneftegas, whose owners receive larger dividends than those who hold common stock, jumped 2.8 percent to $7.69. The stock has been rallying amid speculation the oil producer will pay out a larger portion of the cash it reaped after crude jumped almost 40 percent from a low in January, according to Andrey Vashevnik, the chief investment officer at R&B Investment Fund Ltd. in Moscow.

“Surgut preferreds are a classical attractive dividend story,” Vashevnik said by phone Monday. “Investors are buying the shares before the dividend cut-off date.”

OAO Gazprom gained 2.5 percent to $5.41. Elena Burmistrova, general director of the state-run natural gas producer’s export division, told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday that a second pipeline contract with China is possible “soon.”

Russia reached a 30-year deal in May 2014 to supply gas to China from reserves in East Siberia and have been negotiating a second three-decade agreement from fields in the western part of the region.

The Market Vectors Russia ETF, the biggest exchange-traded fund investing in the country’s stocks, gained 1.5 percent to $18.81. Futures contracts on the dollar-denominated RTS Index expiring in September slipped 0.4 percent to 94,640 in U.S. hours.

Moscow-based aluminum producer United Co. Rusal fell 0.7 percent to HK$4.23 at 11:20 a.m. in Hong Kong.