Futures & Options On Russian Trading Trading Syatem Total Daily Trading Volume Posts a New Record

Total daily trading volume on FORTS (Futures & Options on RTS), the derivatives section of the RTS Stock Exchange, on Tuesday, November 26th, 2002, reached the all-time high of 188 505 contracts or 795.47 million rubles in underlying value. The previous daily record of 172 745 contracts or 726.46 million rubles in underlying value was posted on November 26th, 2002.

Futures and options contracts traded on November 26th, 2002, the record 3 785 times. The previous daily maximum - 3 781 trades - was registered on September 25th, 2002.

FORTS, a unified derivatives market operating since September 19, 2001, is based on trading and settlement technologies and software that were implemented at and have been successfully used by St. Petersburg Stock Exchange for 7 years. RTS acts as the trading system and the clearinghouse on the integrated market. 80 companies headquartered in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and Abakan are FORTS registered members. They trade 6 futures contracts and 2 options.