The dollar's swift fall to 27.9898 rubles to the dollar in Tuesday's trading pushed the U.S. currency back to the level registered in December 2000 when the dollar/ruble rate was about 27.93-27.97. Since the start of 2006, the greenback has lost almost 50 kopecks, Russian forex experts said.
Experts say the dollar is largely under the influence of external factors but proportionally the dollar has weakened more considerably against the ruble than against the euro.
"The dollar's fall versus the ruble was extraordinary," Yelena Khrupova from BrokerCreditServis brokerage said. She added that the dollar's depreciation was facilitated by the active sale of the U.S. currency on the Russian forex market.
According to Khrupova, the dollar's plunge against the ruble showed that the Central Bank of Russia was in no hurry to give a helping hand to the U.S. currency. The analyst said the country's chief bank was more concerned about maintaining ruble stability against the dollar-euro currency basket and curbing inflation, which went out of control in the first ten days of January.
On international forex markets, the dollar suffered a setback versus the euro last Monday, losing 1.41% against the single European currency and closing at $1.23 to the euro, the level registered in September 2005, Vladimir Abramov, an expert with Globexbank said.
Abramov said the complex situation around Iran, the unprecedented growth of gold prices and the narrowing spread between U.S. and EU interest rates were the main reasons for the dollar's fall against the euro. He added that investors' fears about the U.S. balance of payments deficit also precipitated the greenback's decline against the single European currency.
At the same time, Dmitry Baibikov, from Moscow Industrial Bank, said the dollar would likely rise above the level of 28 rubles by the end of this week and "only geopolitical events" can strongly influence its dynamics.
