Russian Currency Struggles
Russia has had to put up with bleak news on the economic front recently – just as much of the rest of the world has as well. But it has got bad enough that the government has had to get involved in recent days. A news story on the Forbes website reported on the latest developments. You can read more about it here.
If you look at the pattern of the US dollar against the Russian ruble, the last few weeks have produced a very interesting path indeed. Back on the 10th July the US dollar was bringing up a figure of 32.6598 Russian rubles. That is what you would have seen on your currency converter. But how has the pattern changed since then? Let’s take a closer look to find out.
The following week started with a big jump up for the dollar as it reached 32.8372 by Monday night. That didn’t last long though, as the exchange rate had dropped way down to 32.2986 just twenty four hours later. If you don’t have a calculator handy, that is a difference of 0.5386 in a single day. What would happen next after that loss?
Well as it turned out the exchange rate carried on dropping and going in favor of the US dollar. The 15th saw a rate of 31.8713, and it finally finished the week on 31.7963.
Sometimes the presence of the weekend gives enough of a respite to perk things back up again the following week. It did perk something up – but it was the Russian ruble that benefited from it. Monday ended on 30.9347.
The best part of the week for the US dollar came on Wednesday, as it struggled back up to a less than impressive 31.1930. But that was the best rate and it was soon going back down again. It finished off the week in a worse position than the previous week, with a final exchange rate of 30.9966.
After an equally poor start to the next week, things started getting a little better. The midweek point saw a rate of 31.3506 being bagged by the US dollar, followed by a finishing rate for the week of 31.5037. Was a recovery in order? The Russian currency might be struggling according to the news reports, but the US dollar was the one having all the problems at this stage in the events.
Once again though, Monday didn’t start well. The 3rd August finished on 31.0749, leaving a loss of 0.4288 on the table. That jumped back up to 31.1749 the following day before falling back again to 31.1551 the day after. This was clearly not an easy run for either currency by this stage. The constant up and down pattern going on was giving neither one any real or solid ground over the other. Quite often we see this happening with two currencies, but in the current situation it does make for interesting viewing.
So we have reached the 5th of August and by the 6th the rate had popped up to 31.2811. This is getting hard to keep up with! Just imagine how things could develop in the future with the news that the Russian government has had to dive in and help out its own currency. How will the exchange rates fare from now on?
Well we can take a look at a few more days, and the 7th August finished with a real flourish on 31.6535. That’s an overnight increase of 0.3724 overnight!
And it has got better still for the US dollar in the past few days. This is clearly where the Russian currency has started to struggle. The week beginning the 10th August saw the closing rate for the US dollar of 31.6881. It then shot up to 32.3090 the next day – adding on an impressive 0.6209 overnight. That increased even more to 32.5264 the following day, before dropping back to 31.7721.
So what will happen next as this story develops? Will the Russian intervention stabilise things for the ruble? Or will it continue to have problems as other currencies take advantage and grab better rates for themselves? Anything could happen here, but you should keep an eye out for this developing story as more news items make themselves known.
