OREANDA-NEWS. On 12 May 2008 was announced, that during the trading session of May 7th, 2008 a record number of trades in option contracts on FORTS was registered with the number of trades reaching 4343.

The previous record was set on March 12th, 2008 when the number of trades at the end of the trading session hit 3920.

On May 7th, 2008 the volume of open interest on option contracts also hit a record high of 6 239 634 contracts.

The previous record in the volume of open interest on option contracts was set on May 6th, 2008 when it reached 177 506 contracts.

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.