This week began to ruble with alarm events. Abnormal, absolutely phantasmagorical collapse of prices on the world oil market was complemented by the bleak reports from the frontlines of the fight against coronavirus. But on Friday, April 24, the domestic currency will find a new strength test: with very high probability the Central Bank will lower its key interest rate at least five percentage points, to 5.5%. Theoretically weaken the ruble even more. In a situation when the market lacks any positive, this triple (oil, pandemic, rate) shock is able to lick it so that anybody will not find it.
on Tuesday, 21 April, the ruble strengthened the fall after the reference brand Brent ($19,8 per barrel), at some point, topping the mark of 76.8 per dollar and 83 per Euro. Below $20 the price of Brent fell for the first time since 26 February 2002. According to financial analyst FxPro Alexander kuptsikevich companies, the ruble tired to keep afloat his drowning force majeure. Against the background of a pandemic, oil prices had started to fail by tens of percent on the entire market, not just in a separate group of contracts for American oil. And I do not say that the rouble is marked with a special vulnerability: due to a sharp decline in economic activity on the planet suffer equally all currencies.
with regard to the probable reduction of the rate of the Central Bank, Kuptsikevich sees in this step a serious threat for the ruble. Markets almost did not react to the easing of monetary policy – as evidenced by recent experience in other countries. The global situation with oil, the controller can not influence, and if so, the priority for him is the easing of credit conditions. What he seems to intend to do.
“Important preconditions for strengthening of the ruble is not, and yet not seen – echoes colleague the Deputy head of IAC “Alpari” Natalia Milchakova. – Pandemic and isolation in Russia, adversely affecting the economy, has not disappeared. Moreover, restrictions may extend for the entire first decade of may. Oil price Monday tumbled again, as if there was no new agreement, OPEC+”.
According to experts, a conventional driver for the Russian currency would be a new lower interest rate of the Federal reserve, but it is highly unlikely that the fed at the April meeting it will go. Accordingly, until the end of April the dollar will be worth 75-77 rubles, Euro – 81-83 of the ruble. However, if oil prices continue to fall, by may, we can see new highs at the exchange rate of the underlying foreign currencies: the dollar at 80 rubles, and Euro – 89-90 rubles. Further, if the pandemic will subside and the global economy starts to recover, oil prices could return to the figures of $40-45 per barrel. Accordingly, the stronger the ruble (68-70 per dollar, 76-79 per Euro).
oil Prices are now so depressed that the ruble is on the background looks overvalued, says a senior analyst “BKS the Prime Minister” Sergey Suverov. However, the interlocutor of “MK” does not exclude that in the second half of the year, the carbon market will begin to recover – if a pandemic and quarantine measures will take. And while the ruble keeps from collapse by the Central Bank selling of currency in the framework of fiscal rules. The expected decrease of the key rate controller is theoretically plays into the weakening of the ruble, and no intervention is not able to prevent this: in the coming weeks the rate may fall in the area of 80-85 per dollar.
Because Russia has still implemented a fiscal rule, we actually live in the exchange rate, the relevant price for domestic oil of mark Urals – about $42,5 per barrel, says investment Manager at “OTKRITIE Broker” Timur Nigmatullin. In this regard, the analyst cannot see the ground for some extraordinary weakening of the ruble, as it was in panic 2015. Now, if the budget rule is cancelled, then you may have to revise forecasts. In the meantime, in the basic and the most probable scenario, the price of oil Brent will in 2020 be in the range of $30-45 a barrel. The dollar by the end of the year will go below $ 75 rubles.
