RTS FORTS: Weekly Data February 3rd-February 7th

For the week of February 7th, the total trading volume on FORTS (Futures & Options on RTS) equaled 636 thousand contracts, or 2 547 million rubles in underlying value. The number of trades reached 16 024. Total open interest, as of February 7th, 2003, stood at 365 thousand contracts and 1,493 million rubles, compared with 365 thousand contracts and 1, 393 million rubles on January 31st.

FORTS members executed 15 375 trades in futures contracts, with total trading volume reaching 623 thousand contracts, or 2 493 million rubles in underlying value (the week of January 27th showed 16 305 trades, 763 thousand contracts and 2 873 million rubles in underlying value, accordingly).

FORTS options trading volume equaled 13 thousand contracts or 54 million rubles in underlying value, compared with 16 thousand contracts and 64 million, accordingly, for the previous week. Weekly trading activity increased by 2.4% and reached 2649 trades.

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. 81 companies headquartered in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and Abakan are FORTS registered members. They trade 7 futures contracts and 2 options.