The Russian ruble is trading near yearly lows on Tuesday, April 4th morning, with a lower supply of export earnings after taxes and fears that the Russian Finance Ministry may reduce the amount of currency for sale as part of the budget rule playing against it.

Today the ruble reached 79.60 rubles against USD for the first time since April 19, 2022, and 86.77 to the euro for the first time since April 15. By 9:30 a.m. Moscow time, the USDTUB on the "tomorrow" settlement was near 79.36. As a result, the ruble is losing 0.8%. The euro/ruble was trading at 86.51, and in that case the ruble was losing 0.7%.

The ruble had already weakened considerably the day before, largely due to the above-mentioned factors and despite the jump in oil prices on the heels of the sensational production cut by OPEC+. Since during yesterday's trading session, the ruble lost 1% against the dollar (78.74) and 2% against the euro (85.93) rumors abound that the beleaguered Russian currency entered a full fledged downward spiral. The ruble plunge might get even faster, because of a growing panic among currency traders.

From March 7 to April 6 the Central Bank has been selling Chinese yuan offered by the Ministry of Finance for an average amount of 5.4 billion rubles daily.

The main factor pushing the ruble lower and lower in recent months was the risk of a decrease in the hard currency proceeds inflow from Russian energy exports due to the introduction of the price cap, as well as the costs of reorientation of raw materials exports to the East, as well as given the March crash of oil to a multi-month low and recognition of growing country’s budget deficit.

However, speculative attempts to mitigate those factor yesterday on the local currency market were unsuccessful in the absence of large export sales and with the demand for currency from Russian importers remaining high. That further aggravated the situation in the ruble for account of the traders closing their short USD positions, including the growing cases of forced liquidations.