The Russian Ruble Has Been Getting Crushed

Western sanctions against Russia are starting to hit home.

The Russian ruble and Russian stock market have both been falling in recent weeks as sanctions weigh on the Russian economy.

As of Monday, one dollar bought about 39.4 rubles, and according to Bloomberg's Vladimir Kuznetsov, the Russian central bank is close to stepping in.

Kuznetsov reported that, "The ruble fell 0.8 percent to 44.2450 versus the central bank's target basket of dollars and euros... That's within 0.4 percent of the 44.40 threshold that would prompt the monetary authority to begin buying rubles according to its policy guidelines."

The ruble has already been the world's worst performing currency this quarter, Kuznetsov reported, while the US dollar has been on a tear.

Russia's response to sanctions hasn't really helped so far, as food prices started skyrocketing earlier this month after it banned imports from the West in retaliation.

And just this weekend, we learned that the sanctions will likely prevent Exxon and Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft from working together on a huge Arctic oil project.

Here's a chart that shows the ruble's decline in the last three months against the dollar.

Russia's MICEX index lost more than 1.5% on Monday, and the Market Vectors Russia ETF that tracks Russian stocks has fallen more than 15% over the last three months.

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