Total open interest as of November 29, 2002, stood at 311 thousand contracts or 1 251 million rubles in underlying value, a 17% and 25% gain, respectively, on 106 thousand contracts and 363 million rubles at the end of October.
In November FORTS participants executed 51.5 thousand trades in futures contracts. Futures contracts trading volume reached 2 406 thousand contracts with total underlying value of 9 992 billion rubles. Average daily number of trades grew 5% and totaled 2 577 trades a day, with daily average volume of 120 thousand contracts (499, 6 million rubles in underlying value).
In options daily average trading activity increased 51% and reached 68 trades a day (compared with 51 trades a day in October) Average daily trading volume in November increased to 3 270 contracts with 11,8 million rubles in underlying value (compared to 2 325 contracts and 7,4 million rubles in October). The total trading volume in November reached 65 thousand contracts or 237 million rubles in underlying value.
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 7 futures contracts and 2 options.
