The price of Brent, which determines the price of Russia’s Urals, dropped below $100 per barrel. Futures for Brent dropped by 2.04% to $99.79 per barrel. The price for WTI 9US) dropped to $99.94 per barrel.
Prices of shares on the Russian market dropped by 1-2%. The RTS index dropped by 1.94% to 1218.08 points. MICEX dropped by 1.1% to 1292.11 points.
The dollar is worth 34 rubles. It increased by 0.43 rubles to 33.91 rubles at 3 pm, although its price reduced to 33.82 rubles half an hour later.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told PRIME that the formation of new reserve currencies is topical, but there is no alternative to dollars.
Spanish banks influence the eurozone. The dollar ratio to the basket of six main currencies increased by 0.24% to 83.26 points at 12.14 pm. The ratio to the euro increased to $1.2332 per euro at 3.30 pm, compared with $1.2364 per euro on Thursday.
Siluanov says that the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) may become the reserve currency. But it is made up of assets and is not used for cash and non-cash payments.
Unemployment in the eurozone reached 11% in April, Reuters reports.
About 17.4 million people lost their jobs in March, the highest level since 1995. Eurozone states escaped recession in the first quarter of 2012.
Unemployment in Austria dropped to 3.9% and increased to 24.3% in Spain. Unemployment in Greece is at 21.7%.
Unemployment in France and Italy is about 10.2%.
