OREANDA-NEWS. Due to the Labour Day holiday in the US, trading activity on the Russian FX market was subdued yesterday, with MICEX turnover amounting to only USD 3.1bn. The first half of the session was rather slow, with USDRUB trading at 68.30 and paying little attention to oil’s softer performance. Things only started to move faster in the evening, when Brent quotes slid below USD 48.5/bbl, breaking the lull on the Russian FX market. By the close, Brent slipped to USD 47.6/bbl, losing 4.0% over the day. Against this backdrop, RUB closed at 69.12 (-0.9%) against USD, underperforming most commodity-based currencies and EM peers. Oil remains the key factor for RUB, which it seems is still pricing in Brent sliding back to USD 40/bbl. Commodity-based currencies traded 0.2-0.4% in the red, with only COP falling 1.1% yesterday. The EM FX index decreased 0.6%, dragged down by KRW (-0.9%), ZAR (0.9%) and TRY (-0.8%).

Maxim Korovin, Tatiana Chernyavskaya
VTB Capital analysts