Rouble steady as market eyes U.S-China conflict, Belarus elections

MOSCOW: The Russian rouble was stable against the dollar on Monday amid lingering concerns about trade relations between the United States and China and new uncertainty stemming from elections in Belarus.

At 0733 GMT, the rouble had slipped 0.1pc against the dollar to 73.78, away from this month's low of 74.68, which it hit last Monday.

Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people sandwiched between Russia and Poland, was shaken over the weekend by clashes between police and thousands of protesters against the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994.

The Belarus central election commission on Monday gave Lukashenko 80pc of the vote, which protesters said was rigged.

"Potentially the events in Belarus carry risks for Russian markets," said Evgeniy Suvorov, an economist at Loko-Invest.

Still, the rouble, which was battered in July by conversions of rouble-denominated dividends into other currencies, should regain some ground, VTB Capital said.

"Our quantitative USDRUB model still points to the fact that the rouble trades cheap versus its fundamentals, so we think it could continue outperforming comparable currencies."

The rouble has lost more than 15pc of its value against the dollar this year, becoming one of the 10 worst performers globally.

Versus the euro, the rouble was virtually unchanged at 86.86.

Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia's main export, was up 0.9pc at $44.80 a barrel, supporting Russian stocks.

The dollar-denominated RTS index was up 0.6pc to 1,278.7 points.

The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.8pc higher at 2,995.4 points.