MOSCOW: The Russian rouble dropped to a new low below 57 against the dollar, continuing a slide that traders said on Friday prompted the central bank to intervene to defend the currency after a rate rise failed to halt its decline.
At 0930 GMT, the rouble was around 1.8 percent weaker against the dollar at 57.44 and down 2.19 percent to trade at 71.40 versus the euro. Russia’s stock market indexes also dropped, following weaker oil prices.
The rouble has lost more than 40 percent since the beginning of the year, weakened by a slide in oil prices and aversion to Russian assets that has been fuelled by Russia’s standoff with the West over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine conflict.
Russia’s central bank raised its main lending rate by one percentage point on Thursday but failed to stop the rouble’s slide or lift the gloom over the economy.
Some investors said the bank had intervened. “This, without doubt was the central bank ... I believe it went out to defend the 58 roubles mark and sold some $700 million for a short time,” said Aleksei Vorobyov, head of forex operations department at Vozrozhdenie bank.
Russia’s central bank said on Friday it had conducted 11.18bnn roubles ($197.44m) worth of forex market interventions on December 10.
That followed $348 million in interventions on Dec. 9 and around $4.5 billion in interventions last week, even though the central bank floated the rouble in November.
Reuters
