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

In May 2005 total trading volume on FORTS (Futures & Options on the RTS) equaled 22 billion rubles and and 2.6 million contracts compared with 34,5 billion rubles and 4,1 million contract in April. Total open interest as of May 31st, 2005, decreased by 3% in rubles and contract and reached 15.06 billion rubles and 1 762,3 million contracts.

On May 5 th , 2005, the new open position record was registered on FORTS – 1.8 million contracts and 15,4 billion rubles.

The top selling contracts in May were "RAO UES of Russia" futures contract (38.7% of total trading volume), "LUKoil" futures contract (20.6%), "Gazprom" (18.4%) and options on "RAO UES of Russia" futures contract (10.3%) and "LUKOil" (3.4%).

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.