OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2015. Ttrading activity on the FX market increased, with MICEX reporting USD 4.5bn of USDRUB turnover. During Moscow trading hours, RUB was a bit volatile and paid little attention to the continuing recovery in crude prices. However, late in the evening RUB gained a stronger footing, moving sharply to 49.65 from the 50.10 seen mid-day.

Hence, RUB closed at 49.81 (-0.2%), and Brent jumped 3.3% to USD 62.2/bbl. The EM market closed in the black, with the EM FX index up 0.5% against USD. ZAR outperformed, advancing 0.9%, KRW grew 0.8%. Commodity-based currencies enjoyed strong bid: AUD hiked 1.6%, NZD and NOK firmed 1.0%.

Yesterday, the CBR updated the list of bonds eligible for FX repo operations and changed the haircuts on a number of bonds. The main highlight is that PGILLN 20 is now officially on the list for FX repo. In addition, haircuts on CHMFRU, DMEAIR and SIBUR declined by 5.0pp to 7.5%. In contrast, the CBR had marginally increased the haircuts for banks’ issues. There were also some reshuffles in the list of local bonds: i) 11 new issues were added to the list; ii) haircuts on sub-federal and municipal bonds were set equally at 12% (previously, they varied from 20% to 30%);and iii) some changes in haircuts on miscellaneous issues.