MOSCOW: The Russian rouble weakened on Friday, paring the previous day's gains after U.S. President Donald Trump cancelled a planned meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, citing Moscow's escalations of tensions with Kiev.
Trump had been expected to meet Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires.
"In focus for the rouble and the entire EM FX space in the coming several days will be headlines on trade wars and geopolitics from the G-20 summit," VTB Capital analysts said in a note.
At 0737 GMT, the rouble was 0.5 percent weaker against the dollar at 66.52, down from this week's peak of 65.92 hit on Thursday. Against the euro, the rouble was 0.4 percent lower at 75.73.
The rouble came under pressure late on Thursday as Trump said he decided not to hold talks with Putin due to tensions over Russian forces opening fire on Ukrainian navy boats and then seizing them and their crew on Sunday near Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
"On one hand, no meeting can somewhat worsen sentiment towards Russian assets," Mikhail Poddubsky, an analyst at Promsvyazbank, said.
But he also said that in terms of the market impact, talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a more crucial role as they could result in some particular trade deal or indicate ways to achieve it.
Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia's main export, was up 0.3 percent at $59.66 a barrel, providing little support to Russian stock indexes.
The dollar-denominated RTS index was down 0.6 percent to 1,134.5 points, and the rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.05 percent lower at 2,397.2 points.
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