Ruble not falling fast enough to save Putin's rainy-day fund: Bloomberg

“Unless the ruble depreciates to come more in line with the fundamentals, either naturally or through resumption of central bank foreign-currency purchase auctions, the government may deplete the Reserve Fund by the end of 2016,” Dmitri Petrov, a currency strategist at Nomura International in London, told Bloomberg by e-mail Friday.

The currency needs to weaken 13% by the end of next year in order for Russia to earn enough from its oil revenue to avoid virtually wiping out the Reserve Fund used to cover budget shortfalls, assuming current prices persist, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. 

Read alsoRussia’s forex reserves "lose weight" – week’s drop by $5.4 bln"Since late July, the central bank put aside a goal to rebuild overall reserves, of which the rainy-day fund is one part, to avoid exacerbating the ruble’s drop and stoking inflation," accoding to Bloomberg.

Meanhile, the Russian authorities "have no concrete date for resuming dollar purchases," Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina told journalists and lawmakers at the State Duma on Friday, saying interventions should be done “carefully.”

Read alsoRussian ruble and stock market resume their declineThe cost of stalling is that while oil has fallen 22% this year, the ruble is down by a smaller 11%, meaning that in local-currency terms, revenue from the nation’s top export is lower than it would be if the exchange rate was weaker. The currency is nonetheless the worst performer in emerging markets in the past six months and inflation is more than 10 percentage points above the country’s medium-term target.

Nomura’s Petrov said the prospect of higher Federal Reserve rates as soon as next month means Russian policy makers aren’t in any rush to intervene.

“In the medium-run it would make a lot of sense if the central bank would absorb the hot-capital inflows and some of de-dollarization inflow that will help it to build buffers for the rainy days, ” Petrov said.