The Russian ruble has had over a decade of very severe movements within the spot currency market.
The very same reason that the small number of Russian citizens with any savings have tried to move their capital outside Russia over the past few years is why many traders of the ruble have enjoyed trading it; it has been volatile whereas the majors have had several years of stagnation.
Previous examples of this include the 2014/2015 ruble crash during which many investors sold off assets that they had held in Russian companies, and during which confidence in the Russian economy was very low.
The first asset to fall during that period was oil in 2014. Crude oil which is one of Russia's major export products, declined in price by nearly 50% between its yearly high in June 2014 and 16 December 2014, and just shortly afterwards, international economic sanctions were imposed on Russia following Russia's annexation of Crimea and the war which took place in the Donbas region.
At that time, many citizens had to spend their salary on the day they received it, otherwise it would have been worthless the next day.
Now, seven years on, the same catalyst is causing a decline in the value of the ruble.
As the news channels are utterly dominated by the events that are currently taking place in Ukraine and Russia, and the economic sanctions continue to be rolled out, this time far more severe than those instigated in 2014 and 2015, confidence in the ruble once again has dwindled, and it has sunk to new lows against all of the major currencies.
Taking the US Dollar as a reference point, the ruble stood at 83.39 against the US Dollar on Friday, February 26, however as the European trading sessions began today, Monday February 28, it has fallen to 103.15 against the US Dollar.
Some speculation has surfaced that there may be bank runs in Russia, and also bank runs on Russian banks based in nations with a significant trade between Russia and themselves such as Cyprus, and some of the former Soviet republics and Eastern European member states of the European Union.. .More info: blog FXOpen
