RT — Ruble at 2-wk low against US Dollar, as Central Bank interferes

The Russian ruble fell for a third consecutive day, extending losses from Monday when the Central Bank announced it would raise the rate for foreign-currency loans to banks. The Bank is trying to curb the 15 percent the currency has gained this year.

On Monday, the Bank of Russia said it will increase the one-year foreign currency repurchase agreement (repo) to the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) plus 2.5 percent. Before the hike, the bank’s repo rate was 1.75 percent plus Libor.

The ruble lost 1.3 percent at the opening Tuesday, trading at 54.03 to the dollar at 11:55am in Moscow, a near 10 percent drop from where the ruble traded at on Thursday at 48.84; the first time it broke the 50 threshold since November.

Against the euro, the ruble lost 0.8 percent at 11:35am Moscow time at 57.69. The currency began to lose momentum Friday, when it nosedived 5 percent.

Despite the drastic loss in the last few days, the ruble is still up 12 percent since the beginning of the year, when it opened at 58.84 per dollar.

Lower oil prices also pushed the ruble to weaker trading levels, with Brent trading down 1 percent at $63.1 per barrel at the time of publication.
The ruble may lose more of its value leading up to the Central Bank meeting on April 30, when it is expected to cut the ruble lending rate.

Someone tell their translator that it hould be "intervenes" instead of "interferes."

RT
Ruble at 2-wk low against US Dollar, as Central Bank interferes

Bloomberg — Bank of Russia Picks New Monetary Policy Chief as Ruble Plunges

Russia’s central bank replaced its head of monetary policy after a series of emergency measures failed to contain the ruble’s decline, drawing criticism from President Vladimir Putin. 

Dmitry Tulin, a former central bank official who also worked at the International Monetary Fund and Deloitte LLP, will take on Ksenia Yudaeva’s role as first deputy governor in charge of monetary policy, the Bank of Russia said in a statement yesterday. Yudaeva, who remains a first deputy to Governor Elvira Nabiullina, will focus on forecasting, strategy and financial stability, she told reporters in Moscow.…

Tulin, 58, joined the Soviet central bank in 1978 after graduating from the Moscow Financial Institute. He later served as the Russian monetary authority’s deputy chairman in the middle of the 1990s and in 2004-2006.

Bloomberg
Bank of Russia Picks New Monetary Policy Chief as Ruble Plunges
Yuliya Fedorinova and Anna Andrianova

My podcast for Fri, Dec 12

In this podcast I talk about the government's funding bill that rips off workers and gives new, free money to Wall Street banks to play with. And I talk about Russia and the crazy policies that Putin and the central bank are employing, which are only hurting the economy and further enabling Western sanctions.

Podcast for Dec 12.