OREANDA-NEWS. October 20, 2010. October 18, 2010 was the first trading day for options on Brent oil futures contract on FORTS.

Trading volume of the options amounted to 365 contracts, while the volume of open interest reached 702 contracts.  In total trading participants executed 45 trades on this new instrument.

For comparison, on the first trading day of EUR/USD FX options market participants executed just 10 trades with volume of 117 contracts.

Traders preferences were given to put options. Open interest volume of this type of options totaled 524 contracts while open interest volume on call options reached only 178 contracts. A high interest in put options normally indicates  demand  by oil market traders for  a hedge against an oil price fall.

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 46 contracts (33 futures and 13 options) on RTS Index, shares of Russian companies, short term interest rates, currency, oil, gold, silver, and sugar.