The ruble has been strengthening for five days in a row, but everything could change soon. Earlier, the dollar fell to 87, and this was the minimum for two months. The euro fell even faster: at the moment the currency was worth less than 96 rubles. This happened after yuan from the National Wealth Fund began to flow into the market. According to the current formula, taking into account the price of oil, the Central Bank must sell foreign currency worth more than 16 billion rubles. in a day. Such deals will last at least until February.
What will happen to the ruble next? Sovcombank chief analyst Mikhail Vasiliev believes that there is still potential for strengthening: “Exporters have returned with currency sales, its supply remains high. The second reason is that the demand for foreign currency traditionally falls at the beginning of the year: import purchases are reduced due to the low season, and it is also not particularly in demand for foreign tourist trips, since few people travel abroad in January. Payments on external debt are also decreasing, and, finally, budget expenditures at the beginning of the year are also usually small.
The third reason is that from January 15 to January 31, the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia will increase sales of yuan from reserves as part of budget operations. Last week, the Chinese currency, roughly speaking, was sold for 1 billion rubles. per day, now this amount has increased 16-17 times, which is approximately equal to 13% of the average daily turnover. That is, these are quite decent volumes.
For the next month, we are targeting a dollar rate of around 85, euro — 93, yuan — 11.8.
But perhaps the ruble will not stop strengthening here, and there may be a movement to the 80-83 area if there are no relaxations in the conditions of the mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings.”
The decree on the mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings is valid until April 30; the Ministry of Finance stated that there are no plans to extend it, at least for now. The volume of currency offered by the Central Bank should be reduced in February, Kommersant FM’s interlocutors are sure. According to rough estimates, instead of 16 billion rubles. every day the regulator will spend only 6 billion rubles.
Also, the rate is supported by high rates. But market participants believe that they will begin to decline in the second quarter. As a result, the trend may quickly reverse, believes Dmitry Alexandrov, managing director of the investment company Ivolga Capital: “It seems to me that the ruble can remain strong not only throughout the first quarter, but rather the first half of the year. Much will depend on oil prices.
If further maintaining prices costs Russia to continue cutting production, then, in turn, this will lead us into a spiral of the need for even higher oil prices in order to maintain current levels of foreign exchange revenue. Given the fairly aggressive sales from the US, this is not an ephemeral risk.
Long-term, probably, the ruble may weaken in the second half of 2024.
Markets are quite cyclical. So far, we still continue to see a fairly good environment in oil prices, but most likely this cannot last forever. I don’t think we will go much above 100 rubles. for a dollar. In my opinion, the weakening is still a return to the levels that we saw in the fall of 2023, that is, about 95 rubles.”
Meanwhile, the dollar surpassed the 100 ruble mark. twice in the last year. In the summer, this led to the Central Bank announcing an extraordinary meeting and raising the key rate by 3.5 percentage points, which was noticeably higher than market expectations. In the fall the situation repeated itself. President Vladimir Putin blamed exporters for the fluctuations and ordered them to sell foreign currency earnings. And if they received rubles for their goods, they had to buy currency abroad with them, return the funds to Russia and also sell them.
If these two factors disappear, the exchange rate may update the anti-record, says Vladislav Kochetkov, president of the Finam investment holding: “This year a sharp increase in federal budget expenditures is planned. At the same time, we are talking about the fact that incomes will also grow. Obviously, this will happen primarily due to a higher tax burden and a weakening ruble, because a weakening exchange rate traditionally gives the budget additional revenue due to the fact that exporters pay more taxes.
In addition, presidential elections will take place in the spring, this is a key date. Maximum efforts will be made to ensure that before this the ruble feels good, the economy directly demonstrates its strength, GDP grows more confidently, small businesses develop, and the share of innovation becomes larger.
But the second half of the year traditionally means increased capital outflow from Russia, which will also inevitably put pressure on the ruble.
And our target for the end of 2024 in this scenario is the dollar at 103-105 rubles.»
According to the Ministry of Economic Development, The average dollar exchange rate this year will remain at 90 rubles. The agency also expects the average price of Brent oil to be $85 per barrel. Now, however, commodity futures have fallen in price to $77.
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