By Boris Solovyov
The ruble continues to fall, despite analysts' expectations of an increase in the inflow of foreign exchange earnings. The stock market began to ignore the weakness of the ruble.
The moment to buy rubles is getting stronger every day
If you read reviews of Russian investment companies, you get the strong impression that all financial experts are waiting for the strengthening of the ruble. They quite logically justify their position by the fact that with the growth of oil, the incomes of oil companies will increase, and they will begin to sell currencies on the stock exchange more.
In particular, Andrei Kochetkov, a leading analyst at Otkritie Investments, notes that “in technical terms, the ruble is extremely oversold. If we talk about objective factors, then in the near future the inflow of foreign currency should increase against the backdrop of breaking the ceiling on Russian oil prices.”
In the old days, the ruble would have risen in price long after oil, because speculators would have begun to actively sell the dollar against the ruble, outstripping winning back positive factors for the Russian currency. But now there are very few speculators on the domestic foreign exchange market. There are even fewer dollars in the financial system that can be borrowed and sold to buy them cheaper later.
Moreover, this shortage of dollars can also be assessed as a success of de-dollarization. As we noted the day before, an increasing part of Russian exports is sold for other national currencies of importing countries. But there is another, very possible reason for the lack of dollar liquidity. The main question is whether exporters will want to sell their foreign exchange surpluses or will they keep them in foreign accounts.
“Apparently, not all the currency from the sale of exports is steadily flowing into the country. Therefore, even with an increase in oil prices, the ruble may weaken. If the inflow stabilizes, the rise in oil prices over the past month will provide some support to the ruble,” says Yury Kravchenko, head of the banking and money market analysis department at Veles Capital Investment Company.
Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the market expects an influx of foreign currency due to rising oil prices. The representative of the monetary authorities has repeatedly said that this process occurs with a time lag of several months.
According to Sinara investment bank analysts, in the second half of the year the price of world oil will reach $100 per barrel, and the discount of Russian Urals oil to the benchmark grade Brent will continue to decrease. This, according to experts, in the third quarter will take the course to the region of 90 rubles. per dollar.
In the meantime, the dollar-ruble pair continues to roll towards hundreds. On Tuesday, the ruble gave the dollar almost 2% of its value. The last deal was at a quote of 97.1 rubles. per dollar.
Oil today is also not particularly encouraging. Before lunch, quotes steadily declined, reacting to bad statistics from China. Chinese authorities reported that in July, Chinese oil imports decreased on a monthly basis by 18.8% to 10.29 million barrels per day.
However, in annual terms, the figure increased by 17%, but here it is worth remembering that last summer there were severe coronavirus restrictions in China.
By the end of the main trading on the Moscow Exchange, the quotes of "black gold" returned to the level of yesterday's close, which indicates the unwillingness of the bulk of traders to sell oil contracts and inspires hope for the implementation of optimistic forecasts.
Ideas are written in charcoal
The day before and somewhat earlier, the weak ruble, together with expensive oil, were the main growth drivers for the Russian stock market. But today, this factor did not encourage investors to make new purchases - at the end of the day, the Moscow Exchange Index closed almost unchanged.
This suggests that the upward rally has fizzled out, there is no money on the market to buy shares on a wide front, and, most likely, investors will start taking profits on strongly grown and unpromising securities, while continuing to buy new ideas.
Today, such an idea was the shares of the Raspadskaya coal company, which went up by 7.5%. The reason for their rise was not the growth of world coal prices, but the adoption by the State Duma of a law on simplifying the transition of economically significant companies to the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The main shareholder of Raspadskaya, the British Evraz, which owns a 93% stake in the coal company, also falls under this law.
If Evraz manages to redomicile to Russia, despite tough British laws, then it will be possible to talk about the payment of dividends to Raspadskaya.
“Raspadskaya can pay divas: the cash flow is stable, there is a lot of cash. But technically, Evraz and its shareholders will not be able to receive money until the company “moves” to the Russian Federation, ”says Evgeny Kogan, an investment banker, professor at the Higher School of Economics.
A very strong report for the first half of the year is also expected from the company, in anticipation of the publication of which speculators are trying to disperse its shares.
Of the highly liquid stocks, Lukoil and Moscow Exchange showed the best result, having grown by 1.3%.
Many analysts believe that now the most promising are the shares of oil companies, so Lukoil rushed to catch up with Rosneft, which had gone ahead yesterday.
Investors will periodically “remember” about the shares of the Moscow Exchange in the light of the growth in the exchange's trading turnover and the expectation of an increase in its income due to an increase in interest rates in the country.
However, it cannot be ruled out that tomorrow a wave of speculative profit-taking will sweep through these securities.
This article originally appeared at expert.ru