The Interest Rate hike worked exactly as intended.
The Dollar-based naked Ruble shorts got squeezed out, and the Norwegians got blasted by the collateral damage.
Without an MFGlobal-style market intervention, by cutting off the USD-RUB trade, a LOT of US Traders would have been screwed.
Instead, they sold Krone for Rubles, to cover the shorts.
Note the Ruble “recovery” after the trading halt:
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/USDRUB:CUR
That’s quite a fascinating conspiracy theory. Did you learn that at Zero Hedge?
Is that the latest from the Kremlin? The problem is “speculators?”