The dollar exchange rate dropped today to 59.13 rubles during trading on the Moscow stock exchange.
As for 14:30, according to the MICEX, the dollar was trading at a minimum of 58.95 rubles, but late increased a little. Thus, the ruble could strengthen to the level of July 2015.
The head of the department of stock markets and financial engineering of the Faculty of Finance and the Banking Business of RANEPA, Konstantin Korischenko, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, explained a stable ruble with stable oil prices. "For already quite a long period the ruble depends primarily on the oil price. And since oil prices are not declining, but even slightly increasing, the ruble continues to strengthen. If we look at such a characterization as the ruble price of oil, it is consistently keeping around 3300-3400 rubles per barrel, which is quite comfortable for both the budget and the market," he said.
Konstantin Korischenko drew attention to the significant evolution of the dollar in the past two months. "After Trump's victory at the elections the dollar rose sharply on world markets, but since the end of December, in spite of the rise in the Fed rate, it clearly declined. Therefore, in principle, there is an influence of the dollar on the behavior of the ruble strengthening, but still it is not so great as the impact of oil prices," the expert said, adding that the current exchange rate of the ruble against the dollar and oil prices is comfortable for the Russian budget.
The head of the finance, monetary circulation and credit department at RANEPA, Alexander Khandruev, in turn, pointed out that the capacity of the Russian foreign exchange market is small, which provides significant currency fluctuations even if events are not significant for other markets. "We do not know whether the strengthening of the ruble is due to the external debt repayment schedule by state companies and the Central Bank or with some informal deal on selling the reserve fund, which could be signed between the Ministry of Finance with state companies and the Central Bank, or with the increased revenues in the foreign exchange market. It is very difficult to predict and explain currency behavior," he said.
"Let me remind you that all the predictions about the course of the ruble-dollar pair for late 2016 - early 2017 failed. In fact, only one person guessed it - the head of VTB Andrey Kostin, who said that the rate will be 60 rubles per dollar by the end of year. No one could know that the ruble and the oil price will start growing in the end of the year and that OPEC countries, Russia and other oil exporters will sign an agreement to cut oil output," Alexander Khandruev added.
