In accordance with the recommendation issued by the Derivatives Market Commission, the basic size of the initial margin required to trade in the following futures contracts is increased by the RTS Clearing Center for the public holidays period as described below:
| Futures contract | Initial margin basic size |
|---|---|
| Delivery futures on Electric Power Industry companies' ordinary shares | 33% |
| Delivery futures contract on "Rostelecom" | 40% |
| Delivery futures contract on "Surgutneftegaz" | 20% |
| Delivery futures contract on NOVATEK | 27% |
| Delivery futures contract on OJSC "Polyus Gold" | 27% |
| Futures contract on Transneft privileged shares | 27% |
| Delivery futures contract on RusHydro ordinary shares | 34% |
| The contract on "URALS" oil | 15% |
| Delivery futures contract on Gas oil L-0,2-62 (all-Union State Standard 305-82) | 15% |
The enlarged initial margin sizes will be in effect from the evening session of October 31st, 2008 to the evening session of November 5th, 2008.
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.
