Russian rouble eases in early trade, stocks stay near recent highs

The rouble eased back from the 60 mark against the dollar and euro in Moscow trade on Friday, while Russia’s benchmark MOEX stock index hovered near a more than three-month high clipped early in the session.

At 0719 GMT, the rouble was 0.2% weaker against the dollar at 60.40 and had lost 0.5% to trade at 60.20 versus the euro.

Promsvyazbank analysts said the rouble would remain in the 60-61 range against the greenback on Friday.

The rouble spent most of August near 60 per dollar. Volatility has subsided since it hit a record low of 121.53 per dollar in Moscow trade in March, soon after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. It then rallied to its strongest in seven years of 50.01 per dollar in June.

So far this year, the rouble has been the world’s best-performing currency, buoyed by emergency capital controls rolled out by the central bank in a bid to halt a mass sell-off. This helped to avoid an economic meltdown that many had predicted.

However, the central bank said Russian banks had lost a combined 1.5 trillion roubles ($24.86 billion) in the first six months of 2022, disclosing banking sector earnings on Friday for the first time since February.