OREANDA-NEWS. The total size of trades on the first trading day in calendar spreads for futures contracts on RTS Index and USD/RUB exchange rate on the Derivatives Market of the Exchange exceeded 20 million U.S. dollars.

"The newly introduced instruments are of considerable interest for the trading members. Our plans to provide soon the trading members with opportunity to trade calendar spreads for futures contracts on gold, and in August calendar spreads for futures contracts on OFZs basket order books will be added to calendar spreads product line", says Roman Sulzhyk, Managing Director of the Derivatives Market of the Moscow Exchange.

"Launch of calendar spreads for futures contracts is a long-awaited move that will enable the Exchange's clients to facilitate their work and reduce costs on maintenance of a position. So for rolling over the trading members need to execute one calendar spread trade instead of two concurrent futures contracts with different delivery dates, with payment bid price and ask price spreads for each futures contract. I think such efforts will encourage further development of the market and attract new clients", comments Sergey Romanchuk, Head of Dealing Centre in Metallinvestbank.

The Moscow Exchange started trading in calendar spreads for futures contracts on RTS Index and US dollar exchange rate on its Derivatives Market on June 05, 2013.

A futures calendar spread is a valuable instrument among professional investors trading futures contracts. It implies one transaction where a futures contract of one delivery month is bought and the same futures product of another delivery month is sold. A new financial instrument will allow investors to avoid slippage risk while rolling over futures contacts, and will provide new strategies to trade futures.