The Russian ruble posted gains today as the prices for crude oil rallied and the quantitative easing in the US spurred the demand for the riskier assets.
The quantitative easing weakened the dollar and boosted commodities, including oil, the main source of Russia’s export revenue. Crude oil reached $87.63 per barrel yesterday, the highest price in more than two years. The ruble also strengthened as the Federal Reserve kept the interest rates near zero, prompting the investors to seek markets with higher yield, like Russia with its 5 percent repurchase rate.
The ruble dropped 1 percent against the US dollar and 2.7 percent versus the euro last month, becoming the third worst performing emerging market currency versus both the greenback and the euro. The one of the reason for the losses was the narrowing Russia’s trade balance surplus.
USD/RUB dropped from 30.801 to 30.630 as of 22:04 GMT. EUR/RUB went down from the opening level of 42.4375 to 42.2120.
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