MOSCOW: The Russian rouble fell to new multi-year lows on Tuesday, but at a gentler pace than on Monday as it approaches a level where the central bank should increase interventions, while Russian stocks made small gains tracking Asian markets. At 0730 GMT the rouble was down 0.1 percent to 39.23 against the dollar-euro basket, having touched 39.30 at the start of the session, the rouble's lowest since June 2009.
The rouble had also shed 0.1 percent against the dollar to 33.81, and 0.1 percent against the euro to 45.85.
The Russian currency has been hammered in recent days by concerns the central bank is withdrawing its interventions, weak balance of payments data and general negative sentiment towards emerging market currencies.
The rouble is now approaching the level, currently 39.35 per basket, where the central bank doubles the volume of its daily interventions to $400 million, a factor that is now helping to slow its descent following a rout on Monday.
"Looking at the rouble's dynamic during yesterday's trading session it's hard to maintain moderate optimism about its immediate prospects," ING economist Dmitry Polevoy said in a note on Tuesday.
He said that compared to some other emerging market currencies such as the South African Rand and Turkish Lira, which have fallen even more steeply since the start of the year, the rouble did not look especially hard-hit.
"This, together with the general negative consensus market view on the rouble, indicates a level of 34 to the dollar and 39.40 to the basket as the immediate goals," he wrote.
However, VTB Capital analysts calculated the rouble has underperformed emerging market peers by 1.5 percent since the start of the year and predicted a rebound because of a seasonally strong current account in the first quarter.
"There are no fundamental reasons for it to underperform," they wrote. Russian stock indexes were up on Tuesday morning. At 0730 GMT the rouble-denominated MICEX index was up 0.3 percent to 1500.5 points while the dollar-based RTS was also up 0.3 percent to 1398.2 points.
BCS analyst Mark Bradford said in a morning note the rise was linked to positive market developments in Asia, where stocks were up on measures in China to loosen credit for major companies.
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