- Russian Ruble snaps two days of gains against GBP
- Gold bids evaporate as risk aversion takes a breather
- Russian inflation hits six-year high
- Russian GDP data postponed for today, March 10
At the foreign exchange market, the value of the Russian ruble appreciated on Wednesday for the second consecutive day settling up +5.79% at 0.00632 against the British Pound. The RUB/GBP exchange rate was seen trading on Thursday morning within a trading range of an intra-day low of 0.00625 and a high of 0.00649 – on track to rally for 3 consecutive days.
Elsewhere, the gold price settled down -2.82% at $1,992 after it retested the previous all-time high on Wednesday. Despite the ongoing Russia – Ukraine conflict and inflation concerns, the risk-off sentiment took a pause.
In Russia, the inflation rate jumped to a six-year high of 9.2% in February up from the 8.7% previous reading. Prices of gasoline have spiked and nearly everything else saw an increase. Food price has seen the fastest increase, being up 11.5% annualized rate.
According to Russia’s national statistics agency Rosstat data the month-over-month inflation reading also increased to 1.2% up from 1% reading in January.
The current inflation rate is more than double the Russian central bank target of 4%.
Looking forward, in terms of risk events Russian GDP data for January has been postponed to today March 10.