“Russia can more than easily pay its debt, and with many bondholders in Asia” and the Gulf Cooperation Council, said Marc Ostwald, a global strategist at ADM Investor Services. “It will probably not want to default out of spite.”
At 16%, Russia’s dollar reserves in 2021 were less than half the central bank’s stock pile four years earlier. And the dollar’s share of Russian export receipts declined to 56% in the first half of 2021 from 69% in 2016, while the euro’s doubled to 28%, according to a study by UBS Group AG economist Anna Zadornova.
As of 12:46 p.m. in London, the ruble was up, so were Russian stocks and the government’s dollar bonds due 2047.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.