Russia Reserves Vanish and Faces an Economic ‘Perfect Storm’
MOSCOW (Worthy News)– Russia’s foreign reserves have dropped to the lowest level since the Lehman crisis and are vanishing at an unsustainable rate as the country struggles to defends the rouble against capital flight, the Telegraph reported.
Central bank data show that a blitz of currency intervention depleted reserves by $26bn in the two weeks to December 26, the fastest pace of erosion since the crisis in Ukraine erupted early last year.
Credit defaults swaps (CDS) measuring bankruptcy risk for Russia spiked violently on Tuesday, surging by 100 basis points to 630, before falling back slightly.
Total reserves have fallen from $511bn to $388bn in a year. The Kremlin has already committed a third of what remains to bolster the domestic economy in 2015, greatly reducing the amount that can be used to defend the rouble. –[wp_colorbox_media url=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11328974/Russia-faces-perfect-storm-as-reserves-vanish-and-derivates-flash-default-warnings.html” type=”iframe” hyperlink=”Source”]