Russian Ruble plunged to a record low last week following the drop of world oil prices. Crisis in one of the world-leading countries have led to rate hikes by its central bank and shorter liquidity on banks. Consequently, forex brokers are finding it difficult to maintain trades on Ruble pairs.

Russian Ruble plunged to record low last week following the drop of world oil prices. Crisis in one of the world leading countries have led to decision to hike rates by its central bank and shorter liquidity on banks. Consequently, forex brokers are finding it difficult to maintain trades on Ruble pairs.

Russian

A number of forex brokers, including Dukascopy, eToro, FXCM, RoboForex, XM, Alpari RU, and EXNESS, have all stopped Ruble pairs trading at some point last week. Alpari RU have resumed trades on USD/RUB pair this week with increased margin requirement to 1:10, but several other forex brokers will not open trades on the pair or other Ruble pairs until January. USD/RUB trading in Dukascopy will be on a halt till at least 12 January 2015. XM halted trades on USD/RUB and EUR/RUB as of December 16th until further notice. RoboForex currently still allows close-only transactions on USD/RUB, but is going to stop trades on the pair during December 31 - January 11. CySec-regulated forex broker Exness even stopped receiving deposits on Ruble altogether, and have not put a certain timing as to when trades on the pair will be opened again. Australian-based FXOpen have also warned clients of extreme low liquidity on USDRUB pair as well as the risk of trading in insecure market conditions.

Ruble has turned into the worst performer in the currency market this year, defeats even Ukraina Hryvnia, by falling around 50% against US Dollar. Currently, Central bank of Russia has increased rates by 6.5% to 17% overnight, sold 500million USD of the country's international currency reserves, and is said to be preparing additional measures to balance Ruble exchange rates. But this morning, WSJ reported that Ruble have started to gain in early trades, rose 4% against US Dollar as Brent crude oil prices rose above 60 USD per barrel.