Russia's rouble back near record low amid oil slide, fear of trade balance falling to deficit

Russia's rouble continued to weaken despite its regional peers gaining in line with the dollar weakness as data later in the day is likely to show worsening trade balance of the country.

The continuing slide in oil prices is another big drag on the currency of Russia, for which crude oil exports are a most crucial source of revenue. Brent for spot delivery traded near 65.50 on Wednesday, a negligible rise from the 5-year low of 65.12 touched in the previous session.

USD/RUB has been edging higher since Friday, and has reversed most of the losses on last Thursday, which marked a 3.6% rebound of the rouble from the record low of 54.90/dollar hit on 3 December. The rouble has fallen more than 38% since end-June.

Crude prices had fallen to a fresh five-year low this week, aggravating Russia's export prospects. The country has witnessed dwindling trade surplus since July this year.

Russia's trade surplus narrowed by 19% from a year earlier in September and hit a more than two-year low of $12.95b. October numbers will be published on Wednesday.

The country has not seen trade deficit in the recent history and any sign of that happening now, will be a big negative for the ruble.

Rouble's downside is even more significant given the broad dollar weakness of the past few days, which has helped other currencies including the east European peers of Russia such as Danish kroner, Hungarian forint and Polish zloty.

The USD index has dropped more than 1% over the past three days from 89.5, the multi-year high touched last week.

The USD/DKK pair has fallen to 6.0046 from 6.0439 while USD/HUF fell to 247.0 from 248.71. USD/PLN dropped to 3.3555 by Wednesday from 3.3802 it recorded on Friday.