Russia’s central bank has decided to keep the country’s stock markets closed on Monday following a 33% crash in the market value on Friday. The Russian currency, the Ruble, is also in free fall, having lost over 18% of its value relative to the Guyana Dollar at time of writing. Russia’s central bank is hoping to reduce the extent of the financial crash by restricting stock trading and significantly increasing its interest rates in a bid to reduce the pressure on foreigners to take their wealth out of Russia.
Though Russia’s central bank closed the Moscow Stock Exchange on Monday, a number of Russia-focused funds trading in the United States crashed Monday, reflecting hundreds of millions of dollars in market value wiped from Russian stocks https://t.co/cBwfaTVOF7 pic.twitter.com/hp0zBaNvhP
— Forbes (@Forbes) February 28, 2022
As the Russian central bank tries its best to stabilize the economy and reduce the impact of harsh economic sanctions placed on Russia, their actions are further hindered by the fact that the central bank has been removed from the SWIFT inter-bank communication system.
Russia has a very low national debt to GDP of under 20% and in recent years they have stockpiled a national reserve that’s valued over 600 billion USD and a Sovereign Wealth Fund of 200 billion. That adds up to savings totaling 50% of Russia’s GDP. Many experts have argued that this war chest is specifically designed to make Russia almost immune to economic sanctions.
