(Reuters) – The Russian rouble weakened past the symbolic threshold of 100 to the dollar before recovering slightly in early trade on Tuesday, weighed down by foreign currency outflows and the country’s shrinking current account surplus.
The rouble’s last tumble into triple digits in August led the Bank of Russia to make an emergency 350-basis-point rate hike to 12% and authorities discussed reintroducing controls to buttress the currency.
At 0415 GMT, the rouble was 0.21% weaker against the dollar at 99.97 after falling to as low as 100.26 soon after opening at 0400 GMT.
It had gained 0.33% to trade at 104.61 versus the euro. It had shed 0.28% against the yuan to 13.65.
The Russian currency tends to come under pressure at the start of each month, after losing the support of a favourable month-end tax period that usually sees exporters convert FX revenues to meet local…
