25 Apr 2014
All eyes on Russia-Ukraine this weekend - BTMU
FXStreet (Barcelona) - Derek Halpenny, European Head of Currency Strategy at the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, underlines the current geopolitical tensions as one significant driver for markets.
Key Quotes
"As mentioned above, tensions in Ukraine will probably be the focus of European trading today. S&P earlier announced a cut to Russia’s sovereign rating from BBB to BBB- and the outlook was kept at negative."
"We have already had approximately USD 70bn of capital outflows from Russia in Q1 and the exposure of foreign investors to the Russian sovereign debt market is relatively small at less than 20%, according to the IMF, and one of the smallest foreign holdings shares in EMEA. Still, its certainly more bad news for Russia – the MICEX index is 5.7% lower this week and USD/RUB is 0.5% higher today. A further downgrade would push Russia into junk status and today’s announcement will only reinforce the capital outflows while the Ukraine tensions persist."
Key Quotes
"As mentioned above, tensions in Ukraine will probably be the focus of European trading today. S&P earlier announced a cut to Russia’s sovereign rating from BBB to BBB- and the outlook was kept at negative."
"We have already had approximately USD 70bn of capital outflows from Russia in Q1 and the exposure of foreign investors to the Russian sovereign debt market is relatively small at less than 20%, according to the IMF, and one of the smallest foreign holdings shares in EMEA. Still, its certainly more bad news for Russia – the MICEX index is 5.7% lower this week and USD/RUB is 0.5% higher today. A further downgrade would push Russia into junk status and today’s announcement will only reinforce the capital outflows while the Ukraine tensions persist."