BLBG:Ruble Gains Most in Week as Crude Advances, Taxes Boost Demand
The ruble climbed the most in almost a week as companies bought the currency for tax payments and crude advanced, boosting the outlook for the world’s biggest energy exporter.
The ruble added 0.8 percent to 31.1250 versus the dollar by 3:24 a.m. in Moscow, the most since Sept. 21. That pared yeterday’s 1.3 percent drop, the biggest in two months. The currency was up 0.5 percent against the euro at 40.0550 and increased 0.7 percent against the central bank’s euro-dollar basket. Non-deliverable forwards showed the ruble at 31.5680 per dollar in three months.
Crude in New York gained 1 percent to $90.87 a barrel. Oil and natural gas contribute about 50 percent of Russia’s government revenue. Russian companies are due to pay about 180 billion rubles ($5.8 billion) in profit tax tomorrow, Alexei Egorov, an analyst with Moscow-based OAO Nomos Bank, said by e- mail.
“Rising oil and growth in demand for ruble liquidity ahead of the profit tax payment helped ruble appreciation,” Egorov said. “The tendency for the recovery of the national currency may sustain.”
The extra yield investors demand to own Russia’s dollar bonds over U.S. Treasuries fell four basis points to 213, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s EMBI Global Index. An index of five-year government bond yields compiled by the Micex rose four basis points to 7.613 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Nicholson in Moscow at anicholson6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net
