Central Bank Makes Currency Interventions Worth $150M Today

From the very beginning of the morning trading session on January 10, the Russian Central Bank was actively selling dollars at 30.50 rubles on the market. Dealers said that it had not changed the selling price during the session. As a result, the average-weighted dollar rate was equal to the Central Bank's selling price. Dealers surmise that the Central Bank spent at least $150m on currency interventions today. They also drew attention to the fact that the volume of the unified trading session was very high again and reached almost $269m. The Central Bank is believed to account for about a half of all deals that were made at this session today. Giving forecasts for tomorrow, currency dealers did not exclude the possibility that the dollar would keep going down on Friday. However, in their opinion, the dollar is unlikely to drop as much as today, not more than by 2 or 3 kopecks. The dealers conceded that the rate might fall to 30.40 rubles per dollar during a smooth slide over the next few days.