Ruble dives on rating cut, hryvnia's TWI soars

Макроэкономика 27.01.2015 Following Monday's market focus on the eurozone after Sunday elections in Greece showed the majority win for the far-left wing political party Syriza into power. Its leader Alexis Tsypras was named as the next prime minister by the majority coalition. The French far-right party of Marine Le Pen National Front (NF) was among first to congratulate Tsypras with the historical win. Despite the political polarization between Le Pen and Tsypras, they have a few traits in common First, they both transformed from being on the fringes of political spectrum to becoming part of the political mainstream. Second, they both maintain close ties with the Kremlin. Last summer, Tsypras visited Moscow to forge an alliance with Putin, while NF has borrowed from a Russian sister bank based in the EU. EU officials responded to the Greek elections with a consensus view that creditors would provide debt relief via debt forgiveness. The euro held firm yesterday and rose 0.30% while the Russian ruble fell 7.45% because of renewed fears of additional sanctions arising from the Donbas war escalation and from the S&P's decision to cut the sovereign rating by one notch from investment grade to BB-, making it junk. Due to the ruble's weakness, the hryvnia 's trade weighted index rose 2.09%.