The US Federal Reserve raised the prime rate to the lowest since March 2022, and Veon shares soared 23% after the news of VimpelCom sale – these and other important news for Thursday morning, February 2, in our daily review.

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised the prime rate range by 0.25 percentage points to 4.5-4.75% per annum. At such an interest rate, commercial banks in the US lend to each other for short terms. This is the maximum since 2007, follows from the data of the Federal Reserve. Then the U.S. economy was on the verge of a prolonged and deep recession, noted Reuters.

Quotes Veon soared 23.04% to 38.45 rubles per share at the beginning of trading on the Moscow Exchange. As of 10:19 MSC growth of securities slowed to 15.2%, and the price fell to 36 rubles per share. The growth in demand for the securities was observed against the background of the news that the government commission for control over foreign investments agreed on the terms of the sale of VimpelCom, which owns the Beeline brand, to Russian top management, providing bondholders with “equal conditions”.

The average estimate of savings needed by Russians for financial independence rose to 4.3 million rubles, RBC writes, citing a January survey by SberStrakhovanie Zhizn. In 2021, the average amount of savings needed was 3.4 million rubles, it has grown by 26.5% since then.

Shell (LON:SHEL) has signed documents with Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) Oil (MCX:SIBN) to sell 50% of Salym Petroleum Development (SPD) LLC. The deal is to be agreed by the Russian authorities, the British company said in its quarterly report. The parties sealed the agreements on December 22, 2022.

The share of the leading cryptocurrencies – bitcoin and ether – in the portfolios of Russian investors turned out to be lower than their share in the global market, writes “Kommersant”. They pay special attention to steblecoins tied to the dollar rate Tether and Binance USD. This feature is associated with their use for cross-border payments and replacement of dollar savings. At the same time, investors soberly assess the risks of cryptocurrency investments, judging by the fact that more than half of them place less than 20% of their funds in virtual currencies.