Pedestrians walk under a board listing foreign currency rates against the Russian ruble outside an exchange office in central Moscow on Dec. 1.
Dec 1 (Reuters) - The rouble fell about 4 percent on Monday as the price of oil plunged again and despite talk that the central bank was intervening for the first time since floating the currency last month.
By 13:15 GMT, it was down 3.8 percent at 52.41 against the dollar and 3.5 percent lower at 65.39 versus the euro, still on course for the biggest daily fall since the 1998 financial crisis.
The rouble had lost about 6 percent during the session against both currencies, plumbing all-time lows of 53.95 against the dollar and 67.30 against the euro, as oil slid below $70 a barrel - a big blow for the world's No. 2 oil exporter.
Oil benchmark Brent futures were hovering just above a five-year low, at $69.6 per barrel, weighed down by weak manufacturing data from China and last week's decision by OPEC not to cut oil production to support prices.
OPEC's shock decision means markets are increasingly pricing in the likelihood of cheap oil for an extended period, causing a fundamental reassessment of Russian asset prices, analysts said.
Oil and gas account for about two thirds of Russia's exports and half of federal budget revenues, making its economy and asset prices heavily dependent on global energy prices.
Traders said the rouble's relatively sudden rally in the afternoon pointed to central bank intervention. The central bank declined to comment.
"The central bank is definitely in the market," said one trader at a major Western bank in Moscow.
A financial market manager at a large Russian bank said, "What is now happening - this is the central bank (selling forex), judging by how sales are on the exchange,"
The central bank has not intervened in the foreign exchange market since it floated the rouble on Nov. 10, saying it would do so only if it considered the rouble's fall a threat to financial stability.
"Well, let's see if the current collapse of the rouble is considered such a threat," Profit investment house head analyst, Gleb Zadoya, said in a morning note.
The rouble crashed through the psychologically significant, and until recently unthinkable, level of 50 against the dollar on Friday, bringing its losses since mid-year to 35 percent.
"Support for the rouble at present can only come from stabilisation of the oil price. Other factors now look secondary and of little significance," Globex Bank senior trader Igor Zelentsov said in a note.
Standard Bank analyst Tim Ash said in a note that he was surprised by the lack of central bank intervention since its decision to float the rouble last month.
"Logically one only has to conclude that the weaker rouble is part of the Russian authorities' policy responses to lower oil prices and sanctions (over Ukraine) as it helps prop up growth and helps keep the budget on track by boosting the rouble value of dollar oil revenues," he said.
The plunging rouble had mixed implications for Russian stock indexes, hurting the dollar-based RTS but boosting the rouble-based MICEX, a pattern that has been become familiar over recent weeks as the falling rouble takes centre stage.
The RTS was down 1.4 percent to 961 points, having touched a five-year low of 930. In contrast the rouble-based MICEX was up 4 percent to 1,595 points, a 2014 high.
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