The Russian rouble started the first full trading day of the new year on the front foot, advancing by more than 3% against the U.S. dollar to rebound from six-month lows hit in volatile trading at the end of 2022.
At 1005 GMT on Monday, the rouble had passed through the 70-mark against the U.S. dollar, trading up 3.4% at 69.68 . The currency was also up 1.9% against the euro to 74.77, and was 2.2% stronger against the Chinese yuan, trading at 10.23 in Moscow .
Having spent long periods of last year as the world's best-performing currency, the Russian rouble lost 17% in December following Western moves to introduce a price cap and an EU embargo on Russian oil exports.
"Before New Year there was clearly a tendency to reduce exposure to stocks and a rush to the dollar," said Alor Broker analysts in a research note on Monday.
"In the coming days, if the geopolitical background does not interfere, there should be a reversal of those trends ... major exporters should start selling foreign exchange earnings accumulated over the holidays and investors should start to sell-down dollars bought for protection," they added.
The rouble and stocks saw little change amid the low liquidity - with the large corporates that power Russia's FX markets and the retail investors that are increasingly the drivers of the stock market away from their desks.
