Last December, SKB-Bank’s official website conducted a survey on people’s forecasts as to the U.S. dollar exchange rate on January 1, 2009. 790 respondents took part in the survey in six days, with the dollar rate coming to 27.8 RUR on the first day of the survey (December 13, 200) and fluctuating within .2 to .3 RUR range during the other five days.

The Bank of Russia’s official dollar exchange rate was determined at 29.39 RUR on the first day of the year, while the number of those surveyed by SKB-Bank who managed to get the figure close enough was only 5%. The majority of respondents couldn’t even guess whether the rate would be dropping or going up. More than a half of them actually said the rate would be on the decrease, with 37% of respondents claiming the rate would drop down to 26.5 RUR per one U.S. dollar on January 1, 2009.

SKB-Bank’s Dealing Director Anton Khavin therefore believes inexperienced investors take greater risks when trying to predict the foreign exchange rates themselves.

‘What one needs to profit from the rate differences is long-term observation and serious analytical work. As for most individuals, making foreign exchange investments only makes sense for them if they are planning to do foreign exchange spending as well,’ he explained.