Let's say no to the ruble

Ruble punishment
Under no circumstances should you invest your savings in any ruble financial instruments now - the only advice that can be given to investors. Every day there is less and less hope that the country will be able to avoid ruble emissions and high monthly inflation.

The question of what to do now with money for those who still have it is extremely relevant. Moreover, now we are no longer talking about any possible income, but simply about where and in what form to store your savings. The only way to avoid losses now is to buy dollars and keep them under your pillow. The last two weeks have shown that the population does not always choose the right moment to buy a currency, preferring to do this during sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate, while usually a rollback usually occurs after a sharp increase. At the same time, you should not count on a decline in the dollar exchange rate. Rather, on the contrary, in the near future the currency will rise in price, although no one is predicting the growth rate now. Today, the real dollar selling rate is about 11 rubles/$ (at the Central Bank exchange rate of 9.33 rubles/$).
In this situation, the active interest of the population in gold is completely justified. Over the past two weeks, Russian banks have sold about 1 ton of gold to individuals (for the entire last year - 300 kg). Despite the fact that gold prices are falling all over the world, this type of investment is now justified as a long-term investment. Moreover, we should expect that next year the 20 percent tax on the sale of gold by private individuals will be abolished.
In addition to dollars and gold, there is another, but riskier type of investment - shares of Russian enterprises. Given that they are quoted in dollar terms, they are not too susceptible to inflation. Moreover, their prices have nowhere to fall further.
The growing interest of the Russian population in shares is also confirmed in mutual funds. In addition to currency funds, which are now showing good growth, an influx of investors has recently been observed in equity funds. As for bond funds, their quotes are now extremely low. However, mutual funds hope that when exchanging GKOs, they (along with insurance companies and bank management funds) will be treated like individuals, so that their losses will be minimized. This issue is currently being discussed in the State Duma.
The issue of trust in Russian banks is now clear. We must try to get money out of banks by any means, especially from ruble deposits. If this fails, then resort to the help of the courts. Unfortunately, foreign banks represented in Russia do not currently work with our depositors. So we should forget about bank deposits as an area of investment for a long time.

ELENA Kommersant-Bazhenova

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 161 dated 09/02/1998, p. 9