Daily Insight-Tax improvements in discussion; warmer trade with Russia seen on the horizon

Ukraine’s central bank made another step in pulling back from supporting the US dollar at the local exchange market by lowering its bid for the greenback to 7.9181/USD from 7.9185/USD. The FX market trended stronger, towards 7.915/USD as of yesterday’s close from 7.917/USD a day earlier. The NDF market for 1-year contracts for the USD/UAH pair stood unchanged at 8.70/USD yesterday. Reflecting some easing in risk aversion in the investment community towards Ukraine’s assets, the 5-year sovereign credit default swaps lowered by 38bp, mirroring a slight improvement in the market sentiment towards the country yesterday. The local stock bourses, prone to staging sizable daily volatility, were up only modestly on the day, with jittery movements in the share prices. The UX index climbed by 1.7% on trading volume of UAH68m in a quite normal turnover for this week.