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Comment by 0898 | Hacker News Reader

Can anybody explain why the rouble is at a five-year high? Or is there something in the intricacies of currency pairings that means this high isn't quite like other "highs"?

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Russia raised interest rates to 20% at the beginning of the war to support the ruble, they also had built strong foreign capital reserves to support their currency, they've also instituted capital controls. The average person in Russia can't buy dollars, and the average person outside of Russian unable to sell any of their shares or short any stocks.

Essentially, the Ruble suffers when people flee to USD, but since both the US and Russia are preventing this, the Ruble is stronger. This is then further supported by extremely high gas prices, which allows Russia to run a trade surplus, exporting expensive oil but unable to import anything.

People are claiming this as a win for Putin - but if you look below the surface there's an obvious fact: The Ruble is only strong because no one is allowed to sell it.

Because it's artificially held high by Russian central bank. That's why Russians are not allowed to buy USD or gold.

Russians are in fact allowed to buy USD (provided the bank actually has the physical dollar notes). The earlier prohibition on buying foreign currency has been relaxed.

They aren’t. They can buy virtual USD, but can only physically withdraw up to $10k per year. And if they receive USD, they are required by law to deposit 80% of it within three days.

> They can buy virtual USD, but can only physically withdraw up to $10k per year.

This applies to withdrawing cash from bank accounts. AFAIK there is no limit on exchanging RUB cash into USD/EUR.

> And if they receive USD, they are required by law to deposit 80% of it within three days.

This applies to companies doing exports, not to private citizens. (Although admittedly citizens don't have many ways of getting dollars.)

(Source: I'm Russian and still follow the news from there)

On the contrary, tax was dropped for metallic (physical) gold operations in order to provide an alternative to dollar for ordinary people (whatever that means). But, given the current prices and trade rules for metallic gold (keep the documents from purchase, don’t scratch ingot, sell to the same bank you bought it from, otherwise price will be lower), it’s not a great alternative.

Besides, price of 1g of gold was around 7500 RUB when tax was dropped, and around 4500 RUB now, so, well, happy investing.

With the sanctions, imports have fallen but exports are still going strong. The Central Bank now requires all exporters to exchange at least 50% of foreign profits into roubles. So, there's a lot of demand for RUB, not so much for USD.

market is frozen

unless you’re Russian you can’t sell assets

at the same time government purchases stocks and rouble with euros made from selling natural resources

It is not free traded anymore. You can't buy USD/Euro in russia, you can't use rubbles outside russia. At this point they can set it anything they want, it's not a market rate.

It is not at a five year high though. Seems to be 10-15% down than five year high against USD.

Even the initial sanction shock has petered out as it seems oil and gas sales have been going well

>The Bank of Russia more than doubled the benchmark interest rate to 20%, a 19-year high, on Feb. 28 and also imposed capital controls, including a ban on foreigners’ selling of securities. Nabiullina said decisions to suspend some regulatory requirements amounted to a capital boost for banks equivalent to 900 billion rubles ($8.7 billion). Putin banned all Russian residents from transferring foreign currency abroad, hardening capital controls.

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