The Russian ruble continued its slide in early trade on Monday as global uncertainty heightened and investors remained wary of recession risks in the United States and Europe, MICEX data suggested.
The average-weighted ruble rate fell by 35.36 kopecks against the dollar to 32.4619 and by 12 kopecks against the euro to 43.37 as of 11:30 a.m. Moscow time.
The value of the bi-currency basket comprising $0.55 and 0.45 euros rose 29 kopecks to 37.43 rubles but then weakened to 37.40 by 11.49 Moscow time.
On Friday, the basket hit the upper limit of the floating currency corridor of 37.20 rubles at open, but then stabilized at 37.13. Overall, the upper end of the ruble basket band moved to 37.35 last week and the shift implied at least a $5 billion of interventions, VTB Capital said in a research note.
"If the global markets do not stabilize, we think the regulator might spend another $5 billion to support the ruble this week," VTB Capital said.
"However, the demand for hard currency could be less as banks and corporates will need additional ruble liquidity of approximately 300 billion rubles in order to meet Excise, MET (due today) and Profit taxes (Wednesday). High central bank intervention activity and the need to pay taxes are likely to have a material negative impact on domestic liquidity, which is unlikely to be compensated by the Finance Ministry's liquidity injection of 200 billion rubles at the deposit auction this week."
The index of the ruble-denominated MICEX stock exchange dropped 2.15 percent to 1,298.72 at the opening of Monday trade, but then strengthened 0.39 percent to 1,332.39 by 11.57 a.m. The dollar-denominated RTS stock exchange lost more than 3 percent at open, but then slowed down its slump to reach 1,308.62 at 11.39 a.m.
In Europe, the FTSE100 dropped 0.61 percent to 5,035.68, while the DAX rose 0.85 percent to 5,240.50, CAC40 increased 0.20 percent to 2,815.80 by 07:59 GMT.
