MOSCOW: The Russian rouble opened lower on Friday, hit by data showing massive capital outflow in the fourth quarter, while stocks were slightly positive, receiving some support from news the country is again attracting new money from funds.
At 0745 GMT, the rouble was weaker against the dollar, the euro and the dual currency basket the central bank uses to gauge its nominal exchange rate.
The rouble lost 0.5 percent against the broadly stronger euro to trade at 40.65, 0.1 percent against the dollar to 31.59, and 0.3 percent to 35.67 against the dollar-euro basket.
On Thursday, central bank data showed capital flight from Russia reached $84.2 billion last year, the second highest ever, with nearly half of that total leaving the country in the last four months of 2011.
"The currency usually lags such news by one day," Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Troika Dialog, wrote in a note.
The rouble failed to receive support from recovering oil prices, with Brent crude rising a dollar to more than $112 per barrel on worries over supply from Nigeria and easing concerns about the euro zone debt crisis.
Stocks were little changed, with investors waiting for some impetus to trade. The country's two main bourses were slightly up, with the dollar-denominated RTS index trading 0.2 percent higher and the rouble-traded MICEX up 0.31 percent.
"How the markets, in general, and the banks in particular trade late today will be determined ... by the first of the fourth quarter results to be released before the bell on Wall Street from JPMorgan Chase," Weafer wrote.
"This is the first of the big banks to report and will set the tone in markets ahead of the weekend."
Shares of Russia's top two banks, Sberbank and VTB opened higher on RTS, up 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, weekly data from fund tracker EPFR Global showed Russia received $43 million of inflows in the week to Wednesday, or 0.4 percent of assets under management, the first week of positive flows in two months for Russia funds.
"There is usually a significant autocorrelation in fund flow data, and positive market performance very often leads to continuing momentum of inflows," said Slava Smolyaninov from Uralsib.
"We thus believe that the positive market trend may remain over the short term, supported by positive flow momentum over the coming weeks."
The spread on Russia's 30-year benchmark Eurobond widened on Friday by around 20 basis points to 117.5 bps, while the yield oscillated around 4.35-4.40 percent, down from 4.50 percent seen earlier this week.
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