OREANDA-NEWS. July 08, 2010. Trading in the option contract on the EUR/USD exchange rate futures will start on FORTS, the derivatives market of RTS.

This addition extends the FX product offering of RTS to five FX contracts. This instrument has been introduced in order to address the growing hedging needs of market participants given the unstable EU market.

"RTS Stock Exchange is launching the option contract on the EUR/USD exchange rate futures to meet the recurrent requests from market participants. We expect the new instrument to attract solid demand from the FX derivatives users and create new investment strategies", says Evgeny Serdyukov, Director of the Futures & Options Market at RTS Stock Exchange.

The FX contracts offered on FORTS make up a set of reliable hedging tools that can protect your deposits and loans denominated in a foreign currency. In the autumn of 2008, investors who had taken a US dollar credit, or set up a ruble deposit, experienced losses due to the extremely volatile international markets. Those who bought the USD/RUB futures or options were able to recover the losses incurred as a result of the sharp fluctuations in FX rates.

According to the results from the first half of 2010, the FX contracts have been among the top three most traded instruments on FORTS. In addition, the USD/RUB futures was ranked 8th among the top leading derivatives worldwide in terms of trading volume measured in contracts and 2nd in Russia in terms of trading volume in rubles.

FORTS, the derivatives market of RTS, is the leading trading venue for futures and options in Russia. Trading on FORTS started in September 2001. According to the Futures Industry Association the derivatives market of RTS is among the TOP-10 global derivatives exchanges based on the results of 2009. At present FORTS has the widest range of instruments in Russia. These are 47 contracts (34 futures and 13 options) on RTS Index, RTS Standard Index, shares of Russian companies, bonds, short term interest rates, currency, oil, gasoil, gold, silver, and sugar.