Russian stocks may gain 15% in the second half of this year to end the year flat compared to Januarys levels, according to a Reuter’s poll of bankers.

Russia’s stock market had a stellar year in 2016 gaining some 50% in value year-on-year. It has done less well this year after investors took profits, political tensions with Washington increased and oil prices recently fell below $50 a barrel. At a corporate level, the ongoing legal fight between state-owned oil major Rosneft and privately-owned AFK Sistema has also badly undercut investor confidence and hurt equity prices.

The ruble-denominated Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) index has fallen 16% since the start of the year while the dollar-denominated Russia Trading System (RTS) index is down 13%, as of June 30.

While there is no “Russia story” theme to invest into, there are a number of “cherries” to pick as the leading corporations in many sectors have used the crisis to consolidate their market share and switched their focus from grabbing market share or increasing income to improving efficiency, increasing profitability and cutting costs. These changes are reflected in revenues, where the best companies have seen big increases despite the recession.

The median forecast of 13 analysts, surveyed by Reuters in the past week, was that the RTS would end 2017 at 1,150 points - around where it closed 2016. Despite mostly bullish predictions, analysts in the quarterly poll acknowledged substantial risks, including the risk that oil prices would fail to recover or that Western sanctions could be tightened. Eight analysts had lowered their year-end forecasts from a March poll, when the median forecast was for the RTS to end the year at 1,250 points, Reuters found.

If all else is equal, analysts believe the drivers for the stock market indices rise include an economic recovery and global central banks phasing out their ultra-loose monetary policies very gradually. Russia’s economy grew by a strong 3.1% in the first quarter, leading most economists to say that the recovery was now well under way, although most predict only 1-2% growth for the full year.

Most analysts saw Brent crude ending the year at over $50 a barrel, compared with their current level of around $46 a barrel, says the Reuters poll. That matters because energy companies have a weighting of around 50% in the RTS. End-2017 RTS forecasts in the latest poll ranged from 850 to 1,350, reflecting the uncertainty among analysts.