The crisis revolving around the Russian ruble and the rout in oil prices is sending shockwaves throughout the financial marketplace. Investors are looking for a way to cover their bonds as yields on British, German and Japan sovereign debt hit record lows and long-dated U.S. and Australian yields reached their lowest since 2012.
Russia's faltering ruble has prompted retail currency trading platform FXCM to cease offering this currency for trading. FXCM presumes that other major traders will make the same move in anticipation of the introduction of capital controls later this week.
FXCM Holdings, LLC is headquartered in New York and has offices in the U.K., Japan, Hong Kong, France, Italy, and Australia. It was listed among the fastest growing companies in the U.S. three years in a row.
Ruble Options Worthless
Almost every bullish ruble option 
contract registered in the U.S. has been made worthless and foreign-exchange brokers in New York and London told clients they are no longer taking ruble trades. Sergey Shvetsov, who oversees financial markets at Bank of Russia
, expressed shock at the scope of the collapse during a conference in Moscow. "?We couldn't imagine what's happening in our worst nightmare even a year ago," Shvetsov said yesterday.
Moscow's raised its official interest rates from 11.5 per cent to 17 percent overnight, causing the ruble to tumble by up to 25 percent and triggering speculation that further steps to stop the outflow of monies would be taken.
The selloff in Moscow is being felt in other developing nations, where investors are pulling money amid concern that Russia's financial struggles and the tumble in oil point to a global economic slowdown.
Officials at FXCM said they made the move to "protect ourselves and our clients. We just don't know what will happen."
Russia-based broker, Alpari, just announced that it too had stopped ruble trading saying, "?Due to the lack of liquidity and trading instruments USD/RUB EUR/RUB are temporarily suspended." Other brokers, such as FXPRO and eToro have yet to make the move.