(Reuters) -The Russian rouble steadied near 95 against the dollar on Thursday, in a volatile week filled with speculation over how the authorities might stabilise the currency after a 350-basis-point rate hike seemed to have a limited effect.
The Bank of Russia jacked up its key rate to 12% on Tuesday, an emergency move to try and halt the rouble’s recent slide past the symbolic 100 threshold, but analysts agreed that more measures may be needed to return the rouble to the 80-90 range authorities have deemed acceptable.
By 0803 GMT, the rouble was 0.1% weaker against the dollar at 94.73.
It reached a near 17-month low of 101.75 against the dollar on Monday and briefly traded at 92.60 on Tuesday morning.
The rouble had gained 0.1% to trade at 103.08 versus the euro. It had firmed 0.1% against the yuan to 12.89.
Authorities are discussing bringing back the compulsory sale of foreign currency revenues for exporters, five sources told Reuters. Beyond rate hikes and capital controls, Moscow has some other options, though none particularly favourable.
The Vedomosti daily late on Wednesday reported that mandated FX sales would not be reintroduced for now and that exporters had informally agreed to raise sales.
But a high-level source told Reuters an update was possible “at any moment”, saying that the Vedomosti story largely focused on the government’s point of view in a broad coalition holding talks.
On the 25th anniversary of the rouble’s 1998 devalutaion, which followed astronomical rates of 150% and panic buying in shops, Russian traders were set to gather later in the day for ‘Dealer’s Fest’, an event to mark the day “a new era of the Russian financial market began”.
The rouble is around 15 times weaker than it was in August 1998, down from 6.3 to the dollar then to 95 now.
, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was up 0.5% at $83.90 a barrel.
Russian stock indexes were higher.
The dollar-denominated RTS index was up 0.4% to 1,018.6 points. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.6% higher at 3,069.1 points, up from its lowest since late July, hit on Wednesday.
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