The ruble bounced back on the stock exchange – Newspaper Kommersant No. 34 (7479) dated 28.02.

At the beginning of the week, the rates of the world’s leading currencies on the Russian market retreated from multi-month highs set on February 24. As a result of trading on the Moscow Exchange, the dollar exchange rate dropped by more than 1.5 rubles, to 74.6 rubles/$. The positions of the euro and yuan noticeably weakened. The strengthening of the ruble was facilitated by the seasonal sale of foreign exchange earnings by exporters, as well as the closing of speculative positions in leading currencies after the realization of sanctions risks last week.

Investors started the new week with a game to increase the ruble: on February 27, the dollar exchange rate on the Moscow Exchange fell below the level of 75 rubles / $. During trading it reached 74.5 rubles/$, and at the end of the day it amounted to 74.6 rubles/$, which is 1.53 rubles. lower than Friday’s close. The euro exchange rate fell by 1.09 rubles during the day, to the level of 79.29 rubles/€. The yuan lost 25.5 kopecks in price per day. and dropped to 10.71 RUB/CNY.

The pullback from the multi-month highs set last Friday, February 24, on the anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and the imposition of new US sanctions, occurred with increased investor activity. The volume of trading in dollars with delivery “tomorrow” exceeded 113 billion rubles, which is five times higher than the result of the previous day and the third largest value this year. The trading volume of the yuan exceeded 130 billion rubles, the second largest result since the beginning of the year. The activity of market participants also increased in trading in the European currency, the trading volumes with which amounted to almost 50 billion rubles.

The strengthening of the ruble is facilitated by an increase in the activity of exporters who are preparing rubles for paying taxes.

On Tuesday, the companies will complete the payment of the mineral extraction tax and VAT, which, according to Zenit Bank estimates, amount to 2.1 trillion rubles. “This is not such a significant amount by the standards of previous months, however, the concentration of basic payments for one day leads to increased volatility in rates,” says Vladimir Evstifeev, head of the bank’s analytical department. Mikhail Shulgin, Head of the Global Research Department at Otkritie Investments, notes that the process of de-dollarization is gaining momentum among large and medium-sized exporters, so the volume of sales of yuan to buy ruble liquidity in order to make payments to the budget within the tax period continues to increase.

The effect was amplified by the active closing of speculative currency positions opened last week on the eve of a long weekend in Russia and in anticipation of new restrictive measures: on February 25, the EU agreed on the tenth package of sanctions against Russia. The new package includes restrictions on the import of machinery and the transit of dual-use goods through Russia from the EU, a ban on the export of Russian synthetic rubber and asphalt to the EU, as well as restrictions on a number of large Russian banks and the National Welfare Fund. The announced measures, according to Renaissance Capital analysts, are of a small scale, shifted to imports, and do not increase pressure on the trade balance and the ruble. “The scenario with geopolitical risks came true, and market participants hurried to close their hedging positions,” says Polina Khvoynitskaya, head of investment strategy and analytics at Expobank.

Due to the fact that exporters carry out transactions mainly with settlements “tomorrow”, further inertial strengthening of the ruble is possible on Tuesday, says Egor Zhilnikov, chief analyst at PSB. Mikhail Shulgin does not rule out that the dollar exchange rate in the first half of the week may reach 71.5 rubles/$. But after the completion of tax payments, the Russian currency will again be under pressure from negative external factors. “The instability of the ruble exchange rate will be associated both with the traditional reduction in the activity of exporters after taxes and the current decrease in foreign exchange inflows from energy exports, as well as with a new package of sanctions against Russian banks that could make it difficult for individual companies to access currency conversion,” Mr. Zhilnikov notes. According to him, the dollar exchange rate may return to the range of 76–77 rubles/$.

Vitaly Gaidaev