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Dollar Plunged to 13.8 Rubles by Error
First time in history of Russia’s foreign exchange market, the currency section of Moscow Interbank Stock Exchange (MICEX) halted trading for about half and hour yesterday. The reason was the technical malfunction blamed on the record turnover of over $11 billion. Foreign currency was sold at large to get ready for buying Yukos assets.
On April 12, the volume of foreign exchange trading at MICEX was three times above the usual amount and reached $11 billion, including $9 billion covered by transactions with tomorrow settlement date.
Market players confirmed the trading volume was the record yesterday and emphasized that the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) was buying aggressively. Its purchase is estimated at $7 billion to $8 billion. The reason of such big turnover could be preparation for the auction for Yukos assets, market players explained.
“Closer to the end of trading, there was a deal for $1.5 billion at 25.88 ruble/$ via a single lot,” said Alexander Karpov from Zenit Bank. After it, the terminals displayed that the weighted average price for U.S. dollar (tomorrow settlement) fell to 13.8 ruble/$. The exchange called it an error and halted the trading.
Though the price of 13.8 ruble/$ could be seen in the trading terminal for roughly another hour and a half, it wasn’t used for transactions and the market players suffered no losses as a result of malfunction.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 13, 2007
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