Russian Ruble experience?

Hi all,

Anyone traded the Russian pair USD/RUB before?
One of my brokers just added it and from what I've seen it looks alright.

Anyone have any previous experience with this pair?
A link for macroeconomic analysis? Been googling but no luck.

Thanks, looking forward to hearing your views.

Ah, I found this thread today, nobody trades USD/RUB?
On 2ch(largest Japanese Internet forums including forex forum), there is USD/RUB thread which is called "RUB-Russian Empire again" recently.
Russian ruble is basket of currencies(USD:EUR=55:45), so we are interested in RUB and some invest in RUB or Russian investment trust fund, however, in Japan, only JNS(a certain Japanese broker) deals with USD/RUB and only one mutual fund company deals with Russian investment trust fund.
In Japan, we often hear of Russian economic news about crass commercialization....
Bank of Russia: http://www.cbr.ru/eng

You can trade this pair on the short side confidently as long as Kudrin remains russian finance minister as it is his policy to strengthen the rouble

As soon as he leaves I would stop trading it as the rouble is not a freely traded currency like USD but it's price is completely controlled by the russian central bank which is at the same time the biggest player on the russian currency market

Even if something should happen now and the USD should start rising singificantly the central bank will be ready to spend billions to push up the rouble , it is their official policy to allow a free movement of around 1.00% with USD/RUB , as soon as it moves more they will get involved - to strengthen the rouble of course

andrew

what's the spread on USD/RUB?

I was going to ask this too. I imagine it would be high as I would have thought it would be a thin market. What are the central bank rates for RUB?

The spread with DeltaStock is 100 pips, smaller than some other emerging currencies.

It's not bad the Rouble as this side we've made some good gains the past couple of months (who hasn't against the dollar?) but looking back, it seems a pretty good currency to trade, some big swings.

Will keep on this one. Still would like more info though, thanks fumafuma nad fxamateur for that info, very interesting.

Kind regards

While it's correct that ruble is controlled by the Russian Cetral Bank's daily operations, in reality, the bank struggles to keep ruble from rapid strengthening in order to keep the industrial lobby happy. Russia is flooded wth profits from oil and gas exports right now, so going short in USD/RUB is safer than bying US government bonds.

Be careful there , this is only partially true.In fact the central bank struggles against strengthening of the rouble but not because oil and gas profits as these profits do not come to Russia but remain in the western countries

What the central bank has been struggling against is the money of equity speculators (did you know that russin stocks etc. can only be traded in roubles?) and the money borrowed by the russian banks and private companies abroad

This is due to the fact that the russian central bank does not finance the local banking system as a normal central bank should do and the system takes money in EUR and USD in other countries , selling them in billions and buying roubles.This is the main the reason for the strengthening rouble

Due to the liquidity crisis that started this year the system does not receive money from abroad anymore so it is only a question of time until the roubles falls - and I am talking about very near future and about a very bad fall - similar to what russia had in 1998 (but for different reasons)

see my post above - trade it until the elections in March 2008 are over and maybe another 3 months as the russian president will remain in power until then.And drop it in June as latest point - if you continue trading the rouble longer you will lose very badly

Good note on the elections there, will look for a short Rouble opportunity after March in the charts.

I noticed on Reuters news if you type in RUB= you can get some great updates on teh Russian central bank and the currency.

RUB weakness... our side shows a possible turn around in the coming hours, already a few hundred pips up. Might be short lived though.

Don't worry , this is only temporary the central bank will only allow the rouble to move down down to a certain point - they usually say 1.00% fluctuations are allowed.As soon as it starts falling excessively they will start dumping USD to support the rouble

As I told before you can have fear after the elections in 2008 but now nothing is gonna happen , there are heavy political implications between the rouble exchange rates and the elections , they will be ready to spend any amount of USD to support the rouble