MOSCOW: The rouble gained on Monday, recovering some of its losses last week, which were triggered by new US sanctions against Moscow and rising concerns about the Sino-US trade dispute that battered other emerging market currencies.
The rouble was up 0.4% versus the dollar at 65.03 by 1310 GMT after it fell to a two-month low of 65.47 at the market open .
Versus the euro, the rouble was down 0.3% at 72.67 after touching a three-week low of 72.79
The rouble fell on Friday as US President Donald Trump imposed another round of sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain, a move Moscow said would hurt already strained bilateral ties.
The new sanctions triggered a sell-off, but closer examination of the new restrictions seems to have eased those concerns.
The new sanctions impose restrictions for US banks on buying sovereign Eurobonds directly from Russia. They do not restrict buying of Russian Eurobonds on the secondary market and do not apply to other banks.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Russia's financial system could withstand external pressure, and several analysts concluded that the sanctions would have limited impact.
ING Bank analysts described the new sanctions as symbolic.
The "potentially most negative scenario" for the rouble, sanctions on buying of OFZ bonds, has not materialised, said Tatiana Evdokimova, an analyst at Nordea Bank.
Markets have for months lived under pressure from concerns that Washington could impose sanctions on holdings of Russian rouble-denominated OFZ treasury bonds that have been popular among foreign investors thanks to their high yields.
After a sharp rise on Friday, driven by a sell-off on the Russian sovereign bond market, yields of 10-year OFZ bonds declined to around 7.4%.
Russian stock indexes were down on Monday, pricing in a drop in oil prices amid renewed global economic growth concerns after Trump signalled an escalation of the trade war with China with more tariffs, which would likely limit fuel demand in the world's two biggest crude consumers.
The dollar-denominated RTS index was down 0.4% at 1,288 points. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.6% lower at 2,657 points.
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