Russian rouble hovers close to 62 vs greenback as tax interval begins By Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The rouble steadied close to 62 towards the greenback on Monday, supported by rising oil costs and the beginning of a beneficial month-end tax interval, because the spectre of geopolitical danger continued to lurk over Russian markets.

At 0730 GMT, the rouble was 0.1% weaker towards the greenback at 62.15, near a one-week excessive. It had misplaced 0.2% to commerce at 60.81 versus the euro and firmed 0.3% towards the yuan to eight.58.

“The tax interval, which has formally began, will step by step acquire momentum, and with it volumes of international forex gross sales by exporters for tax functions,” mentioned Dmitry Polevoy, head of funding at Locko Make investments.

Export-focused companies normally convert international change revenues into roubles to pay home liabilities, which helps the Russian forex.

The rouble is the world’s best-performing forex this 12 months, supported by capital controls and slumping imports after Western governments imposed hefty sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, whereas scores of international firms paused operations within the nation.

, a world benchmark for Russia’s predominant export, was up 0.8% at $92.4 a barrel.

“The IMOEX index stays in a decent vary missing any optimistic drivers,” mentioned BCS International Markets. “However, RTS ought to energy larger on additional rouble appreciation – typical for the end-of-the-month tax interval.”

Russian inventory indexes had been larger.

The dollar-denominated RTS index was up 0.7% to 997.7 factors, earlier hitting 1,000 factors for the primary time since Oct. 7. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.9% larger at 1,967.4 factors.

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