On March 13, 2007 on Derivatives market of RTS – FORTS started trading on five new contracts – delivery futures on “blue chips” of the bonds market:
- On FSK EES bonds, 4th issue
- On Gazprom bonds, 8th issue
- On Moscow City Bonds, 6th issue
- On Russian Railways bonds, 6th issue
- On Russian Railways bonds, 7th issue
On the first trading day the joint trading volume of the trades made on the new contracts exceeded 50 mln rubles.
The launch of futures contracts on the “blue chips” of the bonds market is a well-planned step of RTS in widening the range of derivatives on bonds.
Basic assets of the new contracts are the most interesting instruments on the market of corporate and sub-federal bonds, that’s why futures on these bonds will be quite popular.
Taking into account the specific character of the bonds market, which functions mostly OTC-way, these contracts are made deliverable.
“The development of derivatives on bonds in RTS shows that the new contracts will be claimed. The launch of futures on “blue chips” of bonds market has become a logic step of FORTS in the debt market development. These contracts will supply more diversity to the range of existing on FORTS derivatives on interest rates and debt instruments.
New futures will significantly broaden the opportunities for investing into Russian debt securities and will allow making money on the change of spread of the bonds yield. Those instruments have come to the market, that open access to various categories of participants to investments into corporate bonds. And one can do it having a relatively small sum for a start, the sum which equals the securities deposit”, says RTS First Vice-president Roman Goryunov.
Derivatives market of RTS – FORTS is a leading trading ground for futures and options in Russia. Trading on FORTS started in September 2001. At present FORTS has the widest in Russian range of instruments. These are 32 contracts (23 futures and 9 options) on shares of Russian companies, bonds, short interest rates, currency, RTS Index, oil, oil products and gold.
The trading volume on FORTS in 2006 exceeded 100 bln dollars. All in all there were made more than 5 mln trades with 89,6 mln contracts. Average daily open interest on standard contracts in 2006 grew 4 times and in December reached 5 bln dollars.
