The first May short working week begins in Russia. On Monday and Tuesday, the Moscow Exchange was closed for bidding. It will be interesting to see what dynamics will be in the Russian stock market in the first decade of May. At the same time, in the foreign exchange market, the ruble shows some miracles. On Tuesday, the domestic currency on Forex dropped below 68 rubles to the lowest values since January 2020. However, it will not work to buy a dollar in banks at such “prices”. On the weekend, in one of the exchange points of the capital, quotes 83 - 90 were observed. In short, the ruble now lives its life.
The dynamics of prices for shares both in Russia and in the USA until the end of this week will be determined by an important macroeconomic event - a meeting of the US Federal Reserve, which will announce a decision on the interest rate tonight at 21:00 Moscow time. As for this very bet, here without surprises: all analysts unanimously expect an increase by 0.5% to 1%. The question is different how aggressive the rhetoric of Jerome Powell will be regarding the further rate of increase and reduction in the balance of the Fed. We believe that it is quite aggressive, since inflation continues to gain momentum. At the same time, it is not entirely clear how much the market takes into account such a “hawk” rhetoric, in other words, how much is already “in the market”.
The American dollar (DXY) has been cosmically strengthened by the basket of the main world currencies in recent times just at the expectations of aggressive tightening from the US regulator. The index is now at the mark of 103.6 of the point - these are the highest values over the past 20 years. This was also facilitated by expectations from a mild policy from the ECB and the Bank of England, in contrast to Fed. The meeting of the Bank of England, by the way, will take place tomorrow.
What else is happening in the markets
Russia managed to avoid technical default. On May 4, the grace period ended in Eurobonds with repayment in 2024 and 2042. Earlier, the Russian Federation refused to pay coupons in the currency, expressing disagreement with freezing of the currency reserves of the Central Bank from the "unfriendly" countries. Ultimately, on the eve of Russia paid coupons in currency.
The manufacturer of chips and video cards, AMD, reported significantly better than expectations, increasing the revenue (5.89 billion) by 71%per year, and net profit (0.79 billion) - by 42%.
Within the framework of the 6th EU sanctions package, the EU may consider the refusal of Russian oil within six months, as well as the disconnection from SWIFT by a larger number of Russian banks. Among the potential goals, Rosselkhozbank, ICD and Sberbank appear.
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