OREANDA-NEWS. On 14 March 2008 was announced, that effective March 14th, 2008 trading on futures contract on RAO UESR ordinary shares with settlement on March 30th, 2008 will be started on FORTS, derivatives section of RTS. Delivery will be effected as usual – the vendor shall deliver to the purchaser 1000 RAO UESR ordinary shares. The last day of trades execution – May 29th, 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 64 contracts (45 futures and 19 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 equaled 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.