Sept 29 (Reuters) – The Russian rouble weakened to a greater than two-week low in opposition to the greenback on Friday, heading again previous the 97 mark as a beneficial month-end tax interval handed.
At 0800 GMT, the rouble was 0.5% weaker in opposition to the greenback at 97.32, its weakest level since Sept. 14.
It misplaced 0.9% to commerce at 103.12 versus the euro and shed 0.2% in opposition to the yuan to 13.33 .
The rouble tumbled previous 100 to the greenback final month, main authorities to debate the potential for reintroducing controls to buttress the foreign money.
Month-end tax funds, that normally see exporters convert international foreign money revenues to pay native liabilities, assist the rouble, however the foreign money can slide as soon as the interval has handed.
The rouble has additionally now misplaced the short-term assist of upper gross sales of international foreign money than ordinary by the central financial institution, which was promoting round 21.4 billion roubles ($220.6 million) of yuan a day till the beginning of this week.
The rouble fared higher than anticipated after the tax interval handed this week, mentioned Alor Dealer’s Alexei Antonov, however the foreign money shouldn’t be out of the woods but.
“It is attainable that the market began receiving an elevated influx of export revenues from oil companies as a result of development in oil costs in current months,” Antonov mentioned. “However this doesn’t for now override the situation of the dollar-rouble pair going to the area of 100.”
Brent crude oil, a worldwide benchmark for Russia’s foremost export, was down 0.3% at $95.08 a barrel. It hit a 10-1/2 month excessive within the earlier session.
Russian inventory indexes had been blended.
The dollar-denominated RTS index was regular at 1,011.1 factors, whereas the rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.5% greater at 3,124.6 factors.
Shares in metal pipemaker TMK had been 1.8% greater, outperforming the broader market, after the corporate mentioned it had raised 4 billion roubles in a secondary public providing.
($1 = 97.0025 roubles) (Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Enhancing by David Holmes)
