OREANDA-NEWS. June 1, 2012. On May 30, 2012 FORTS, the futures and options market of MICEX-RTS, saw a record high in trading volume of currency pair contracts.

At the end of the main trading session, trading volume of FX derivatives reached RUB86.3 billion or 2,688,706 contracts.

The most popular contract was the USD/RUB FX futures. Trading volume of this contract was RUB76.9 billion representing 2,357,496 contracts. The previous trading record in this contract was fixed on March 14, 2012.

In addition, the volume of open interest on the options on the USD/RUB FX futures hit a record high of RUB8.9 billion, representing 290,356 contracts.

"The increase in volatility of the FX market entailing growth of risk level encourages boosting activity of all categories of trading participants in the relevant section of the derivatives market, both speculators and hedgers. In this respect, we can highlight the growth of open interest in options that represent a perfect hedging instrument. The growth is partly due to both market makers" operations in the order book and activity of participants who quote on request. Thanks to these activities, any participant of the market is able to open a hedging position of any volume”, said Evgeby Serdyukov, the Managing Director of Derivatives Market at MICEX-RTS.

The previous record trading volume in the FORTS currency section was seen on August 5, 2011 when market participants executed trades with a total value of RUB 83.3 billion.