Investors are betting that the Bank of Russia will raise interest rates tomorrow after it exhausted all other options for stabilizing the ruble. A look at the oil price suggests that too may be futile. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the ruble tracking the price of Brent crude over the past 12 months, with both falling 39 percent. The annotations show when the benchmark rate was increased with no notable response from the nation’s currency. The currency has tracked the slumping oil price even as the central bank freed itself up in November to intervene as much as it chooses and choked off access to rubles in an attempt to deter speculators. The bank has increased its main rate by 400 basis points this year and will raise it by 50 basis points to 10 percent tomorrow, according to the median estimate of 27 economists in a Bloomberg […]