The Russian ruble continues to plunge to new record lows, hitting 48 to the U.S. dollar, 59.4 to the euro, and more than 76 to the pound in trading this morning on the Moscow Exchange.
The ruble has lost about 25 percent of its value this year against the dollar and the euro despite regular intervention by the Russian Central Bank. But central bankers decided on Wednesday to limit their intervention to $350 million per day.
Barring any major development, that ends the live blogging for today.
Update from our news desk:
Kyiv has accused Russia of a fresh military buildup on its border with Ukraine.
The Security Council said on November 6 that 60 unmarked armored vehicles, including 50 T-64 tanks, were moved to a town close to the border in the Rostov region of Russia.
The Ukrainian government also refuted allegations from pro-Russian separatists that they had launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, with military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov saying they were abiding by the September 5 cease-fire agreement.
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said the Ukrainian military had conducted a "massive mortar attack" on Donetsk's Kirovsky district.
And the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin discussed the "deterioration of the situation" in eastern Ukraine with security chiefs following "repeated violations" of the cease-fire by Ukraine's armed forces.
Bloomberg reports that Russia's reserves are down 20 percent after it fought the drop in the ruble:
Russia’s international reserves, which have shrunk by a fifth since last year’s peak, are in the spotlight after the central bank shifted its currency intervention policy as the ruble plunged to a record.
The value of the stockpile has declined for 11 straight weeks, losing $10.5 billion in the seven days through Oct. 31 to $428.6 billion, the central bank said today on its website. The ruble weakened to a record low, depreciating 1.9 percent against the dollar as of 3:17 p.m. in Moscow.
Under new rules announced yesterday, the Bank of Russia can conduct large-scale discretionary interventions to defend against what it deems to be threats to the nation’s financial stability. Such operations will be restricted only by the size of the reserves, central bank First Deputy Governor Ksenia Yudaeva said yesterday. The holdings are now in a “comfortable zone” that allow the regulator to act without any “substantial limits,” she said.
“Clearly they became uncomfortable” with burning through $2 billion to $2.5 billion a day to defend the ruble, Tom Levinson, the chief foreign-exchange and interest-rates strategist at Sberbank CIB, said by phone. “I don’t think they will want to but if they had to they would consider going down to $400 billion.”