June 23 (Bloomberg) -- The ruble weakened for a second day against the dollar and the central bank's currency basket as oil, Russia's chief export, declined on speculation the global recovery will flag. Russia's currency depreciated 0.3 percent to 30.9900 per dollar by 10:24 a.m. in Moscow, adding to a 0.4 percent drop yesterday. The government's benchmark sovereign dollar bonds due April 2020 rose, pushing the yield 2 basis point lower to 5.35 percent. Crude oil for August delivery fell as much as 1 percent to $77.04 a barrel in New York after U.S. crude stockpiles increased and existing-homes sales fell, missing economist estimates and signaling the world's largest energy consumer may be struggling to sustain an economic recovery. Investors increased bets that the ruble will weaken further, with non-deliverable forwards showing the currency at 31.1800 per dollar in three months compared with an NDF of 31.1412 on June 22. The contracts are a guide to expectations of currency movements as they allow foreign investors and companies to fix the exchange rate at a particular level in the future. The ruble was little changed at 38.0000 per euro. The movements against the dollar and the euro left the ruble at 34.1497 against the central bank's target currency basket, which it uses to manage swings that hurt Russian exporters. The basket is calculated by multiplying the dollar's rate to the ruble by 0.55, the euro to ruble rate by 0.45, then adding them together. The ruble remains within the 26 to 41 band the central bank pledged January 2009 to defend.

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