In accordance with the decision taken by the RTS Derivatives market committee on April 11th, 2008 the size of the minimal initial margins on the following futures contracts will be changed:
- Initial margin on futures contract on RTS Index and Sectoral Indices decreased by 2.5% to 7.5% of the contract price;
- Initial margin on futures contract on Rostelecom shares increased by 3% to 15% of the contract price.
FORTS, the derivatives market of RTS, 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. These are 66 contracts (46 futures and 20 options) on shares of Russian companies, bonds, short term interest rates, currency, RTS Index, oil, silver, gas, oil, sugar and gold.
Trading volume on FORTS in 2007 grew threefold and reached 297.41 bln dollars or 144.9 million contracts . Compared with 2006 the number of trades increased more than twofold and reached 11.7mln. Total open interest at the end of the year equalled 14.7 bln rubles in cash or 3.2 million contracts. FORTS also saw a record day’s trading in 2007 when the value of all contracts traded reached 5.2 bln dollars on December 13th, 2007.
