Russian Ruble Appreciates Despite Central Bank Intervention

The Russian continued to rise against the US dollar and stabilized against the euro today, following the exceptional intervention measures conducted by the central bank.

Bank Rosii (the country’s central bank) released Russia’s International Reserves statistics for the past week today, showing an increase of $5.1 billion up to $517.9 billion. It’s said by the market analysts from the Russian Otkritie financial corporation that about $1.9 of that gain was purchased by the bank to hold down the appreciation of the national currency, which often occurs during the last weeks of the month because the exporters have to pay taxes during that time.

It looks like the purchasing activity of Bank Rosii is aimed mainly towards the euro, as the dollar is experiencing a constant decline against the ruble, while the euro is seen fluctuating near months’ ends. Last week’s intervention size is the country’s biggest action since the end of March. The total amount of foreign purchases this month reached $3 billion.

USD/RUR went down from 27.56 to 27.51 as of 16:20 GMT today. Meanwhile, EUR/RUR is still trading near its open level of about 40.76.