Ruble Collapses, Markets Take a Break After Volatile Movements From Last Week

Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities are still resisting the attack from Russia. The invasion is entering its second phase and so are the financial markets. After the initial shock, investors are trying to adjust to the new reality.

The shock is not entirely gone in Russia. The USDRUB closed on Friday at around 83 RUB for 1 USD. On Monday, we had to wait a bit for the opening but it didn’t disappoint those expecting high volatility. The new week opened with a huge gap and the price was trading between 98 and 110. With this, ruble was worth less than a Robux. What’s a Robux? If you have young kids at home, you probably know – it’s a currency used in a computer game – Roblox.

What about the Russian stock exchange? Well, you don’t have a problem if you don’t open one, right? The Stock Exchange in Moscow didn’t even open and it will remain closed on Tuesday as well.

Moving on, overnight, we had a monetary policy decision in Australia but we had no changes there, the board decided to maintain the cash rate target at 10 basis points.

In today’s calendar, we do have PMI’s from Europe and later the GDP from Canada.

The last important data to hit the market today will be the ISM Manufacturing PMI from the US, where a reading of 58 is expected.

The European session starts with futures on indices being pretty high, so we can we can go out on a limb and say we’re starting with a bit of optimism.

Metals remains pretty much intact today, I guess metal trades are taking a break after the volatile movements from last week.

One of the biggest movers today is oil, which started Tuesday on the front foot, aiming for new long-term highs. I guess that a further rise is pretty inevitable.