What definition of strong are you using? Ruble (only one l) has historically been around 85:1 and now its ~60:1. (Rubles:Euros, i.e. 85 Rubles for 1 Euro)

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=RUB

That is the definition of strong. You need fewer rubles now for 1 euro. Just like you need fewer USD for 1 euro now.

> Ruble (only one l)

Indeed, thanks. Not a native speaker here, and I got everything mixed up with the early-war pun “the Ruble is going to rubble”

> What definition of strong are you using? Ruble […] has historically been around 85:1 and now its ~60:1. (Rubles:Euros, i.e. 85 Rubles for 1 Euro)

Yes, that means Ruble's purchasing power increased by 40% (one Ruble could buy you ~1.2 euro cent, and now it buys you ~1.7).

That means it is about 40% stronger than it historically has been.

IF you had your money in Rubles last year, can buy 40% more of a product than if you had your money in Euros.

What product can you buy with rubles?

Wheat and gas, or better yet, euros to get anything elae

> anything* else

*not under sanctions.

Sanctions don't stop a forex investor from trading the rubles they own for euros and buying whatever they want

Can you actually trade ruble? For some reason, for example, Sep-2022 futures chart for ruble has a gap between Jun 15 and today. And forex.com claims USD/RUB and EUR/RUB are unavailable for trading.

Yes, you can still trade it. Foreign currency exchange is decentralized. Us and EU exchanges have stopped trading and ruble, but you better believe in the n in Chinese exchanges still trade it

I think you are theorising too much based on a bit of Russian propaganda. I looked at a few exchanges and the spread on rubble is so high you could not buy more than a few dollars at the rated prices.

Look at the spread at the Bank of China ( China's largest bank and foreign exchange).

They are buying rubles 10.75 RMB and selling at 12.5 RMB. They are selling USD add 674.

This gives 63 rubles to the dollar.

The fact is that major economic powers in the world have not signed onto sanctions and have access to both Russian and Western currency.

It is true that many parts of the West have lower need for rubles because of sanction, but if you I think that the entire Globe has frozen trade with Russia and trade in Russian currency, you are the one that has fallen for propaganda. They just no longer can use western exchanges to convert currency. See the link below.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/markets.businessinsider.com/new...

That's a huge spread, which is exactly what I was talking about. You buy 1$ for 63 rubles on that bank chances are the 2nd dollar will cost you 64 rubles. Need to see the order book and market depths at different prices. High spread also means there haven't been many trades recently.

Did you read the link? $703 million worth of rubles is being traded a week, and that is just yuan and just one exchange.

So far you have changed your position from you can't trade it at all to the spread might become incrementally worse if trade exceeds 700 million US dollars worth a week

First of all, that's the volume they claim themselves.

Second, this exchange is in Russia. Can you actually move your "yuan" from that exchange to China or anywhere outside the country?

The ruble is strong because imports have been cut in half due to sanctions, while exports continue unabated. Actually, Europe sends more money to Russia now than before the war.

It's strong because they are burning foreign currency and stopping people from pulling out. Same thing that Sri Lanka did.

They did that indeed, especially in the early days to avoid a complete collapse, but since then it's not the primary mechanism at stake.

This is a great reminder that keeping your money afloat is not that hard as long as you can export. (For the record, what destroyed Venezuela comes from the fact that they needed to import light oil in order to process their heavy one. Once the sanctions cut the input flow, the output flow dried up pretty quickly and it was game over)

I don't think it will matter long, given the catastrophic failure of the Russian military (which is currently demilitarizing Russia pretty quickly, how ironic), but from the economics PoV it's still interesting to witness.