blockquote“A significant amount, if not all, of the speculative attacks on the ruble are funded by the central bank itself,” said Vladimir Osakovsky, Moscow-based economist for UniCredit/blockquotepThe underlying dynamics of the current ruble devaluation are provoking more than a little consternation in Russia at the moment. In the forefront of the debate are data from Bank Rossii (the central bank) which show they lent 7.7 trillion rubles ($214 billion) in overnight and seven-day loans (secured with bonds or other collateral) in just 16 trading days last month - this was about double the 4.8 trillion rubles provided via so-called repurchase auctions in December. Over the same period the ruble lost 18 percent against the dollar. The question is, is there a connection here?/ppRussia's banking authorities now certainly seem to think there is and Kommersant reported (Friday) that policy makers planned to reduce bank loans in an attempt to limit ...

By Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Russia's foreign-exchange reserves have been now been declining very rapidly since mid August, and as the money goes so does the faith that the large stock of reserves the country built up during the boom times would be sufficient to see them through any downturn in energy prices. As the money leaves, so it seems does the decade of economic growth and stability which they symbolised. Indeed so rapid has been the decline that Russia's international reserves, which are the third-biggest after those of China and Japan, have now fallen $161 billion, or 27% percent, since 8 August last, and decreased by $17.9 billion to $437 billion in the week to 5 December. Investors have now pulled $211 billion out of the country since August, according to estimates by BNP Paribas.br /br /br /pa href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SUbQptNe4tI/AAAAAAAALyE/K0xlBOy3AlA/s1600-h/russia+GDP.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280137028067844818" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: ...