The ruble plunged 3.8% on Wednesday and another 2.8 on Thursday to a new all-time low of 83.85 to the dollar, at 5:30 PM Moscow time, blowing through the previous catastrophic panic low of December 2014. At the time, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank deployed desperate, and ultimately very costly shock-and-awe measures to stop the ruble from spiraling out of control. And it triggered all kinds of drama.
On December 16, 2014, the Central Bank announced that it increased its benchmark rate by a brutal 6.5 percentage points to a dizzying 17%, after having already jacked up rates in the prior week to 10.5%. And the Ministry of Finance announced it would begin selling Russia’s crown jewels, its dwindling foreign currency reserves, and with the proceeds mop up rubles.
It seemed to put a floor under the ruble for a few blinks of an eye, but then the ruble crashed 20% in no time, hitting 80 rubles to the dollar for a few moments, and it was going to be the end of the world, but then the ruble reversed course and spiked higher.
Today, there’s no such drama. The ruble is now lower than it had ever been. It has plunged 26% against the dollar in just three months. It’s also down 25% against the euro, 27% against the yen, and 23% against the yuan. This is an all-out ruble crash, not a “strong dollar” problem.
And it’s down 63% against the dollar since early 2013. Back then, it took 29 rubles to buy a dollar. It took 62 rubles three months ago. It takes nearly 84 rubles now:
But there were no big announcements and no shock-and-awe moments. Instead, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank sat on their hands and let it happen.
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