OREANDA-NEWS. On October 17, 2007, trading volume on the Futures and Options on RTS market (FORTS) reached a new record. On a single trading day the total derivatives trading volume on FORTS was 50.65 billion rubles, which is over US$ 2 billion.
The previous record trading volume was registered on September 13, 2007 and totaled 49.7 billion rubles.

On a single trading day the volume of futures contracts on the RTS Index was 266,315 contracts or 28.7 billion rubles, which is a record value.
The previous record in trading volume of futures on the RTS Index was registered on October 11, 2007 and totaled 28.5 billion rubles.

According to OJSC Russian Trading System Stock Exchange CEO Roman Goryunov, the growth of trading volume on FORTS is caused by the fact that more and more private and institutional investors are becoming aware of the advantages of using derivative market instruments. “We have seen market volumes growing fast recently. In the last few months records have been beaten several times. We believe that this figure – US$ 2 billion – will be the average value of daily trading volume in the near future on FORTS.’’

Derivatives market of RTS – FORTS is a leading trading venue for futures and options in Russia. Trading on FORTS started in September 2001. At present FORTS has the widest range of instruments in Russia. There are 58 contracts (39 futures and 19 options) on shares of Russian companies, bonds, short-term interest rates, currencies, RTS Index, oil, oil products, gold, silver and sugar.

Trading volume on FORTS in 2006 exceeded $US 100 billion. In total 89.6 million contracts were traded and there were more than 5 million separate transactions. Average daily open interest on standard contracts in 2006 grew by 259.5% in rubles and in December reached US$5 billion.