The Russian Central Bank Spent Over $10 Billion In A Failed Attempt To Halt The Ruble's Collapse

Russia's central bank has spent over $10 billion since the start of the month in a failed attempt to halt the ruble's slide.

Between Dec. 12-15 alone, the Bank of Russia spent over $4.3 billion of the country's foreign currency reserves. The central bank sold $1.961 billion on Monday as the ruble slid by 10% after spending some $2.383 billion last Friday, Russian business daily newspaper Vedomosti reports.

Despite the massive intervention, the ruble has fallen over 30% against the dollar over the past month. 

The chart below shows just how unsuccessful those interventions were (orange line is ruble versus the dollar while green line is Brent crude):

The figure takes the total amount spent on currency interventions this year to over $80 billion. Although the country still has around $406 billion in international reserves, with the ruble down again today against the dollar many will be asking whether all that money was well spent.

The interventions come despite the central bank announcing the "abandonment of unlimited foreign exchange interventions" last month and the removal of fixed trading bands for the ruble against foreign currencies (where the central bank set limits for the highest and lowest value of the ruble it was prepared to accept before intervening).

The latest bout of currency purchases takes the total amount spent on currency interventions this year to over $80 billion. Although the country still has around $406 billion in international reserves, with the ruble down again today against the dollar many will be asking whether that was all money well spent.