Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Russian stocks fell, erasing earlier gains, after a report showed the unemployment rate in the U.S. soared to a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, sending oil to its steepest intraday drop in a week.

OAO Rostelecom and OAO Gazpromneft led the 30-stock Micex Index down 0.8 percent to 1,248.13 percent at 5:54 p.m. in Moscow, trimming the gauge’s advance this week to 1.2 percent.

“The Russian economy is dependent on a strong U.S. recovery,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist with UralSib Financial Corp. “Today’s payroll data puts a big question mark over the strength of global recovery, and that hurts investments in Russia more than everybody else.”

Payrolls in the world’s biggest economy fell by 190,000 workers last month, compared with a decrease of 175,000 projected as the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The jobless rate gained from 9.8 percent in September and exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983.

“Russian equities are considered to be one of the riskiest assets globally, so they tend to overreact in both directions,” said Roland Nash, chief strategist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. “After enormous gains that we’ve seen this year, investors are clearly nervy.”

The Micex has more than doubled this year as signs the global economy was recovering sent oil and commodity prices higher, buoying profit outlooks for producers.

OAO Gazpromneft fell 6.19 rubles, or 4.2 percent, to 143.76 rubles. Oil dropped as much as 2.9 percent in New York after the payroll data. OAO Gazprom decreased 5.28 rubles, or 2.9 percent, to 174.60 rubles.

Uralkali

OAO Rostelecom retreated 7.51 rubles, or 3.9 percent, to 184.35 rubles. Russia may delay a planned overhaul of OAO Svyazinvest, the holding company for fixed-line regional operators, by two years to 2013, Kommersant reported.

Russia is reorganizing state-controlled Svyazinvest by merging all seven of its publicly traded fixed-line operators with OAO Rostelecom, the country’s dominant long-distance phone operator, also controlled by Svyazinvest.

OAO Uralkali, Russia’s largest potash producer, fell 4.66 rubles, or 3.4 percent, to 131.75 rubles. “The China factor continues to put pressure on the shares,” Constantin Demchenko, head of trading at Everest Asset Management, said by telephone from Moscow. “It’s possible that the China contract won’t be signed for a long time, or it will be signed at much lower price.”

Belarusian Potash Co., a marketing arm for Uralkali, has led annual negotiations with China over sales volumes and benchmark prices. The largest international producers cut prices earlier this year for India by 26 percent to $460 a metric ton.

-- Editors: John Kohut, Peter Branton.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in Moscow at mkolesnikova@bloomberg.net,

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 10:38 EST