Moscow Stock Exchange suspends trading in dollars and euros due to US sanctions

The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) has announced that trading in dollars and euros will be suspended after the US Treasury Department placed it on a sanctions list on Wednesday. The sanctions also include the National Clearing Center and the National Settlement Depository, which act as intermediaries in dollar trading in the Russian currency market. According to the exchange's announcement, from June 13, "trading in the foreign exchange market and the precious metals market is carried out in all instruments, except for the US dollar and the euro." Similar restrictions will apply to the stock and money markets. The Moscow Stock Exchange is an important part of the Russian financial infrastructure. With it, banks, businesses and investors buy and sell currencies: dollars, euros and yuan. The Central Bank of Russia, depending on the progress of trade in the first half of the day, set the exchange rate of the ruble, which in turn determined the exchange rate at which the currency can be bought from banks: "The main consequence will be a structural increase in the volatility of the ruble exchange rate. It means that the fluctuations of the ruble will be much stronger, the ruble will become even less stable," Alexander Isakov, chief economist for Russia and Central and Eastern Europe at Bloomberg Economics, told the BBC.