OREANDA-NEWS. Yesterday, RUB continued to correct, weakening 0.5% against USD by the end of the session. In the meantime, BASKET closed just 0.3% in the red amid EUR’s global underperformance. USDRUB settled on a rising trend from the morning, peaking at 50.15 by midday. However, a recovery in oil prices provided just marginal support to the Russian FX market, so RUB ended the day at 49.77. In turn, Brent picked up 0.8%, climbing to USD 63.7/bbl. The EM FX space traded mixed, but the average index still firmed 0.3% yesterday. Among the leaders we highlight TRY (+0.5%), ZAR (+0.6%) and BRL (+1.2%), while IDR and KRW lagged, slipping 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively. Commodity-based currencies felt no relief, losing 0.5% against USD yesterday. The key dates of the tax period are getting closer, but we think that export support is not overdone yet, given the moderate numbers of trading turnover in recent sessions. Yesterday, MICEX reported USD 3.8bn of turnover. Thus, we think that RUB could well be sticky at current levels in the short term.

Maxim Korovin, Tatiana Zueva
VTB Capital analysts