OREANDA-NEWS. Yesterday, the Russian FX market surprised, as USDRUB spiked to 70.40 during the early trading hours, completely ignoring Friday’s rally in crude. To a certain extent, the morning’s downward correction in the oil market justified the sluggish performance of RUB. However, crude later bounced once again, with Brent closing up almost 6.0%, at USD 53.7/bbl. In light of this, USDRUB dropped to 68.32 at the end of the day, so RUB firmed 1.7% in the end. USDRUB total trading flow was near USD 5.2bn, rather decent turnover by recent standards. NOK surged 1.0% following crude’s performance, but since Thursday last week it has appreciated 2.3% vs. USD, while RUB has gained just 1.0%. The EM FX index ended near 0.2% in the black, with ZAR up 1.3%, whilst TRY advanced 0.4%. If crude oil at least finds the ground here, we think RUB has more room for strengthening, especially, given that positioning and risk sentiment in RUB are likely to have improved following yesterday’s session, because it showed that the Russian FX market is not a one-way road.

Maxim Korovin, Tatiana Zueva
VTB Capital analysts