Continuing with varying intensity for more than a year and a half, the strengthening of the ruble seems to have come to its final. As noted by analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the main admirers of the ruble - foreign speculators working in the "carry trade" format, and thereby earning interest rates on various markets, will very soon begin to withdraw capital from emerging markets, including Russia. Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

As noted in their review of the strategy of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA), led by David Honer, the index of speculative flows in currencies and bonds of developing countries is close to the critical level. According to Honer, the statistics of previous years indicate that the correction occurs within four weeks, after the index reaches the peak values.

"Carrie-trade is notorious for closing positions when overshooting the level of risk, especially when there are many of them and they are interrelated," - says the report BofA. If the volume of investments is "off scale," the slightest risk can cause a chain reaction and capital flight, also stated in the document.

Indeed, the situation with the crazy trade craze turns into building a huge currency pyramid, and the more money it pours into, the less stable the whole system becomes.

All this is well known to participants in the game in the curry trade, which means that soon they will try to get out of it with the least losses. Since, least of all, the one who leaves before others, the "flight" of the players can take an avalanche-like character.

"Harvard economist Jeffrey Frenkel compared the carry trade with" the collection of coins in front of the asphalt ice rink, "explained Vice-president of the Golden Mint House Alexei Vyazovsky. - And indeed, the rink is coming to Russia. And his name - falling oil prices (minus 2. 5% only for today). It's no secret that the ruble's exchange rate largely depends on the quotations of black gold, which has now gone down. Quotas for oil production have already been played by the market, the summer begins, when the demand for oil products traditionally falls and now the ruble starts to fall after oil. According to my forecasts, the domestic currency has every chance to go to the area of ??59 - 60 rubles per dollar, and this is not the limit of devaluation ".

As noted in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in the risk zone is not only the Russian ruble. Together with it, Western funds actively bought up the Brazilian real, the South African rand and the Indonesian rupee, the yields of bonds denominated in which was 8-12% per annum. The meaning of the trade-exchange transactions in this case is that by purchasing these bonds for loans in dollars or euros taken at 1% per annum or less, you can get a solid and virtually free profit on the difference in interest rates.

In turn, thanks to the high rates supported by the central banks of Russia, Brazil and other countries, the inflow of foreign currencies and bonds of developing countries continues for 17 consecutive weeks to reach $ 33 billion.

As for Russia, then, according to the Central Bank, last year its state bonds received $ 10.8 billion, and since the beginning of this year - $ 3.4 billion. This led to the strengthening of the Russian national currency by 8% to the dollar and 4% to the euro in January-May.

It is noteworthy that this growth occurred against the background of a cheapening of oil by 12%, which indicates the strength of the trend caused by the construction of the curry-trade pyramid. Therefore, given the likelihood of an early decline in oil prices, we can expect an increase in the effect of ruble weakening caused by an early exit from the ruble assets of curry-traders investors.