The RTS Index in dollars he dropped by 6

The verdict has been without appeal. The Moscow stock exchange has again unscrewed yesterday at the opening. Therefore, the authorities have decided to suspend the ratings "until further notice." Previously, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced that it was more than 1,130 billion roubles ($44.4 billion) the total available to Russian commercial banks to "ensure the liquidity of the Russian banking system" confronted with the global financial storm illustrated by bankruptcy, Sunday evening, of Lehman Brothers.

Warnings are available by the Russian budget will be concentrated on three institutions public or semi-public, Sberbank, the network of Caisses d'Epargne (754 billion rubles), VTB (268 billion roubles) and Gazprombank (104 billion roubles). These banks will be allowed to place these funds on deposit for a period of three months or more, which in theory should revive a currently almost non-existent interbank credit market, reluctant banks to lend to and sisters can be severely exposed to the subprime crisis. But "for the time being, the manner in which the other banks in the country will benefit from the windfall from the Government is not clear", emphasized yesterday Tom Mundy, the Bank Renaissance Capital analyst. The panic yesterday in Moscow was also fuelled by information according to which the business Kit Finance Bank had failed to deal with some of its financial obligations.

In addition to the action of the Ministry of finance, the Central Bank announced yesterday the "additional measures", with a strong reduction of the rate of minimum reserves, there still to increase liquidity in the interbank market. This rate is thus reduced from 8.5 to 4.5 on deposits in foreign currency and 5.5 to 1.5 for deposits in rubles.

A crisis of confidence

The Central Bank has reduced to 9 to 8 are steering rate at 24 hours. It had already injected Tuesday $ 20 billion in weekly auctions where banks had proposed the record rate of 11.1, without stop to panic in financial markets. Vladimir Osakovsky, an economist at UniCredit SpA, pointed out that it "is not shortage of funds but a crisis of confidence". However, the Central Bank emphasized yesterday that it had reserves of $ 570 billion, the third in the world, to ensure the liquidity of the banking system. There is no evidence that the set of measures announced yesterday will bring back confidence and allow reopening today the awards in Moscow. The Micex index (in rouble) won 3.1 before the suspension of the ratings, after losing 17 percent the previous day, its greatest fall since the 1998 crisis. The RTS Index (in dollars), he dropped by 6.4 yesterday morning, after having lost 11 the previous day. Since its historic record of last may, the RTS has lost in total 56, more than almost all other financial markets. The stock market valuation of Moscow lost 425 billion in four months.

A downturn due to specific headaches on the Russian economy, in addition to the aftermath of the financial storm came to the United States. Beyond the concerns arising from the conflict in Georgia, in August, investors in Russia see that revenues in currencies of the countries plunge since the beginning of the summer because of the dramatic decline of oil prices. The latter fell Tuesday under the bar of 90 dollars, for the first time in seven months, or 39 lower than its all-time record for July 11. The oil and gas sector represents about one third of the country's GDP, half of its exports and two thirds of its tax revenue. He always feeds the majority of Russian economic growth, expected in slight downturn this year albeit at a vigorous rate of 7.8. However, UniCredit announced Tuesday that he hand expecting a growth of only 6.3 due to the crisis.