The rouble weakened back past 82 against the dollar on Monday, waiting for support from month-end tax payments and the positive impact from higher oil prices, while Russia’s benchmark stock index climbed to a more than one-year high. At 0747 GMT, the rouble was 0.3% weaker against the dollar at 82.07 and had lost 0.1% to trade at 90.28 versus the euro.
It had shed 0.3% against the yuan to 11.93. Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was down 0.1% at $86.3 a barrel.
The rouble is set to gain support from month-end tax payments that usually see exporters convert foreign currency revenues to meet local liabilities. Taxes are due on April 28.
The Russian currency should also see a delayed boost from this month’s higher oil prices, which translates to higher export revenues. Russia’s finance ministry and central bank are drafting a mechanism to limit daily purchases of foreign currency on the domestic market, the Vedomosti daily reported on Monday, quoting Ivan Chebeskov, head of the finance ministry’s financial policy department.
The move would aim to restrict influence on the rouble rate of large deals as foreign firms sell their Russian assets to local buyers in response to Moscow sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last year.
Russian stock indexes were higher.
Russian rouble tumbles to near one-year low
The dollar-denominated RTS index was up 0.7% to 990.2 points.
The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 1% higher at 2,579.9 points, hitting its strongest point since April 11, 2022.
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