OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2011. The futures on Russian Federation government bonds started trading this February with an average daily trading volume of RUB50 million. For the first three weeks of October the average daily trading volume in this futures has grown by 13 times to reach RUB650 million.

For this period the open interest in this contract has increased tenfold to RUB5.1 billion compared to RUB500 million.

In addition, on the 21st of October the trading volume in this futures exceeded RUB1 billion which equals 16% of the turnover on the underlying spot market. This indicates a large interest of market participants towards this derivatives contract.

"We expected this trading volume growth as it is a very interesting and sought-after instrument for all bond market players", says Evgeny Serdyukov, Derivatives Market Director of RTS Stock Exchange. "In the current market situation this contract may be used for both speculative strategies and as a tool for hedging a bonds portfolio. Given that contracts on long-term interest rates are among most widely traded derivatives globally, we may see a further growth of turnover in these instruments on the Russian market as well".

FORTS, the derivatives market of RTS, is the leading trading venue for futures and options in Russia. Trading on FORTS started in September 2001. According to the Futures Industry Association the derivatives market of RTS is among the TOP-10 global derivatives exchanges based on the results of 2010. At present FORTS has the widest range of instruments in Russia. These are 56 contracts (41 futures and 15 options) on the RTS Index, MICEX Index, RTS Standard Index, Russian Volatility Index, shares of Russian companies, Russian Federation government bonds, short term interest rates, currency, oil, gasoil, power, gold, silver, and sugar.