Russia's Central Bank Buys $200 Million in Intervention on Currency Market
May 22 2015 - 4:14AM
Dow Jones News
By Andrey Ostroukh
MOSCOW-The Bank of Russia continued intervening in the currency
market and bought another $200 million on Wednesday, the bank said
on Friday.
The central bank--which reports its currency market activities
with a two-day lag--resumed interventions last week in order to
replenish the country's depleted reserves. Analysts say the central
bank buying foreign currencies is aimed at limiting the ruble's
recovery.
The central bank said last week it will buy between $100 million
and $200 million a day and the purchases shouldn't affect the ruble
rate. Earlier this week, a central bank top official said the
amount of daily interventions could change, which the market took
as a hint that purchases will increase.
Since purchases began on May 13, the central bank has bought
$1.18 billion. Russia's international reserves rose $3.8 billion to
$362.3 billion in the week to May 15. A year ago reserves stood at
$466.8 billion.
Write to Andrey Ostroukh at andrey.ostroukh@wsj.com