Futures & Options On The RTS Stock Exchange: March 2005 Monthly Data

In March 2005 total trading volume on FORTS (Futures & Options on the RTS) increased by 35% in rubles and 49% in contracts and reached 34.5 billion rubles and 3 million contracts. Total open interest as of March 31st, 2005, reached 13.1 billion rubles and 1,5 million contracts.

The top selling contracts in March were "RAO UES of Russia" futures contract (50% of total trading volume), "Gazprom" futures contract (22%) and options on "RAO UES of Russia" futures contract (9%).

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 8 years. RTS acts as the trading system and the clearinghouse on the integrated market. 86 companies headquartered in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and Abakan are the registered members of FORTS. They trade 8 futures contracts and 4 options.