explainers

No fixed price A week after Russia’s largest exchange halted dollar and euro trades, the ruble is behaving erratically

Source: Meduza

A week after the Moscow Exchange was hit by U.S. sanctions, the ruble is experiencing unusual swings. In just two days, from June 18 to June 20, the dollar’s official exchange rate against the ruble dropped from 89 to 82.6 rubles, while the euro fell from 95.4 to 89 rubles. However, the very next day, Russia’s Central Bank raised the dollar exchange rate by nearly three rubles to 85.4, and the euro to 91.4 rubles. Meduza breaks down the factors behind this volatility and explains how to track the ruble’s fluctuations going forward.

On June 12, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest stock exchange, the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), and its subsidiaries, the National Clearing Center and the National Settlement Depository — effectively cutting off the Moscow Exchange from the dollar. That same day, the exchange announced that it would halt trading in the U.S. dollar and the euro, starting June 13. (Trading in the Hong Kong dollar also stopped.)

As a result, currency trading shifted to the over-the-counter (OTC) market. Even before the sanctions, 60 percent of currency transactions in Russia occurred off-exchange. Importers and exporters, the primary players on the Moscow Exchange, had the most influence on the ruble’s exchange rate in recent years. Now, they’ve also had to transition to the OTC market, leading to higher costs for buying and selling currency, as well as increased volatility in the ruble’s exchange rate.

These sanctions against the Moscow Exchange are another step towards making the ruble non-convertible and a new blow to importers and exporters, noted Alexander Kolyandr, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), in a column for The Bell.

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A faux phoenix

The sharp fluctuations in the ruble’s exchange rate this week are the direct result of U.S. sanctions, which have caused demand for foreign currency to drop. This, in turn, has driven up the ruble.

U.S. sanctions have already been impeding Russian imports, with fewer and fewer banks in China, India, and Turkey offering their services to Russian companies out of fear of secondary sanctions. According to SberCIB analysts, imports in May were about 30 percent lower than they could have been with a normally functioning payment infrastructure. The Central Bank also noted that the expected seasonal spring increase in imports didn’t occur.

Now, this payment issue has been compounded by the sanctions against the Moscow Exchange. The halt in trading of the dollar and euro could affect at least 22 percent of imports, estimated Pavel Biryukov, an economist at Gazprombank. Promsvyazbank analysts believe that the new restrictions could reduce foreign goods deliveries by 15-20 percent.

Meanwhile, exporters continue to sell foreign currency earnings in compliance with a mandatory decree. Each day, the Central Bank sells yuan worth 8.1 billion rubles (over $90 billion) as part of budgetary operations, and exports and the current account surplus remain strong thanks to high prices for oil and other raw materials, Mikhail Vasilyev, the chief analyst at Sovcombank, told Vedomosti.

The Central Bank confirmed this. According to its preliminary data, the surplus in the foreign trade balance of goods from January to May increased to $56 billion, up from $47.6 billion in the same period last year, “due to a more significant drop in imports compared to exports.”

This situation is reminiscent of 2022, when the ruble sharply appreciated due to the withdrawal of foreign companies and the collapse of imports. “In fact, we’re now seeing a classic situation with a pool and two pipes: currency flows into the country in a stable stream through one pipe, and almost none flows out through the other,” explained Alexander Potavin, an analyst at the Finam financial group. According to him, this has led to an “unwanted strengthening of the ruble for the government.”

At the same time, sanctions against the Moscow Exchange are also impacting exporters. The sharp appreciation of the ruble may be due to their reluctance to sell currency at an unfavorable rate. On June 20, Reuters, citing market participants, reported a sharp decline in the sale of export earnings in yuan. The outlet’s sources believe this is because corporate sellers are unwilling to sell at a low rate. It’s also likely that the Russian authorities intervened: the Kremlin might have persuaded exporters to hold on to the currency to prevent the ruble from strengthening too much.

The ruble runaround

Before the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s Central Bank set the official ruble exchange rate based on currency trading on the exchange. This rate could be tracked in real time on the exchange’s website.

Now that dollars are no longer traded on the exchange, the Central Bank is determining the rate of the U.S. currency against the ruble based on bank reports and information from over-the-counter trades as of 3:30 p.m. Moscow time on the current business day. (This rate is then published at 4:00 p.m. Moscow time.)

There’s nothing unusual about this method of determining the exchange rate, noted Alexandra Prokopenko, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and co-host of Meduza’s Russian-language podcast View of the Kremlin:

The absence of trading in dollars and euros on the exchange has also created another problem: investors and ordinary citizens lack a reference point throughout the day. The Central Bank sets the official rate once a day, but with the current level of volatility, actual values can change significantly.

One way to estimate the ruble’s rate against foreign currencies is through the yuan, which is still traded on the Moscow Exchange. Using the yuan-to-ruble exchange rate, the ruble’s value against other currencies can be calculated using data from foreign central banks. Generally, the stronger the ruble is against the yuan, the stronger it will be against other currencies.

According to the Central Bank, the Chinese currency accounted for 54 percent of trading on the Moscow Exchange in May, making it the “primary currency in exchange trading.” “The yuan/ruble exchange rate will set the trajectory for other currency pairs and serve as a benchmark for market participants,” the bank said. 

Non-deliverable forward contracts for dollars and euros are also still traded on MOEX and can also serve as indicators of the ruble’s value against Western currencies. Additionally, dollar futures contracts can be used to track the ruble’s exchange rate, although their prices have always differed slightly from the actual dollar-to-ruble exchange rate, Natalia Pyryeva, an analyst at the Moscow-based investment company Tsifra Broker, told Forbes. Contracts with earlier settlement dates provide a more accurate picture, explained Vladimir Bragin, head of research at Alfa Capital, as those with later dates are less liquid and may not accurately reflect current market conditions.

Although it’s possible to track the ruble’s current value through futures contracts and the yuan exchange rate, there’s no guarantee that Russians will actually be able to buy currency at these rates. The final price is now set by the seller and the platform where the transaction occurs.

Previously, the Moscow Exchange guaranteed that buying and selling dollars and euros was transparent and safe. Now, sellers can essentially set their own prices. As a result, the cost of exchanging currency — the spread between buying and selling rates — has increased, and these rates must be constantly checked. Additionally, the currency might not even be available at a given location. In the first few days following the new U.S. sanctions, many bank branches visited by journalists didn’t have any physical dollars or euros.