When you are thinking about sending money abroad, an international money transfer provider is a great option. They can help you with the whole process, provide useful online tools and most importantly bank-beating exchange rates and low or zero fees.
This is a chart showing the change in the USD-RUB mid-market exchange rate over the last week. The Total Cost of each foreign transfer in the above table is calculated as the sum of all fees and the exchange rate margin, which is the difference between the provider's exchange rate and the mid-market USD-RUB exchange rate.
Whenever you are interested in an exchange rate you are actually interested in two currencies due to the fact that the value of a currency must always be quoted in comparison to a second currency.
So it follows that if you are determining the best time to transact, in this case the USD vs RUB, you should pay attention to both United States Dollar and Russian Ruble news and forecasts.
In the third week of April the Dollar Index was rallying strongly towards the mid-97s, slightly below major resistance at 97.70, a break of which would be massively positive for the greenback. The index was up 1.7 percent year-to-date.
The dollar’s strength comes in spite of a dovish surprise in March from the Federal Reserve, which ditched two interest rate hikes from its 2019 projections. Fortunately for dollar holders, the rest of the world has problems and other important central banks also turned dovish, removing much of the incentive for selling USD.
Bloomberg research warned in April of potential for a large upcoming move in the US dollar, up or down. Over the past quarter-century, three prominent troughs in the JPMorgan Global FX Volatility Index were followed by dollar moves over 6-month periods worth 10-15 percent. The index was trading in mid-April at a 5-year low.
3-March-19: 2018 was a year of steady depreciation for the ruble; it lost 17 percent and 12 percent of its value against the dollar and euro respectively. US sanctions played a part in that weakness, as did an end-of-year collapse in the oil price and the Russian central bank’s purchases of foreign currencies for the purposes of bolstering Russia’s FX reserves.
In early 2019, with a Moody’s upgrade for Russia and a 30 percent bounce in the oil price, the ruble performed well. At the time of writing, year-to-date the ruble had gained 5 percent against the dollar, taking it back to ₽65.9, and 6 percent against the euro, taking it to ₽74.9.
“Levels around 65.5 per USD and 74 per EUR should remain the limit for RUB appreciation,” a Nordea Markets analyst said in February, as chatter surrounding a new round of sanctions resurfaced.
In February, 12-month forecasts offered by TradingEconomics.com were for ₽68.8 and ₽76.4 for USD/RUB and EUR/RUB respectively.
