Open interest on Russian Federation government bonds futures exceeds RUB6 bln

On April 19, 2012 by the end of the FORTS main trading session open interest volume on the futures contracts on Russian Federation government bonds (OFZ) basket reached RUB6.2 billion, a trading record since the launch of the contracts.  In particular, open interest on the 6-year OFZ basket futures amounted to RUB3 billion, on 4-year basket – RUB2 billion and on 2-year basket – RUB1.2billion.

"We see a growing demand for these instruments and we are trying our best to improve conditions of work on the market.  Some positive changes have taken place recently. First of all, number of market makers has been increased to six companies boosting the order book liquidity to a minimum value of RUB250-300 mln on both sell and buy sides. Secondly, the initial margin size has been decreased from 3-4.5% to 1.5-3.5% allowing further accumulation of funds by trading members. The growth in open interest volume indicates appreciation of these changes by participants", said Evgeny Serdyukov, Managing Director of the MICEX-RTS Derivatives Market.

To find out more about the futures on baskets of Russian Federation government bonds, please visit http://www.rts.ru/en/forts/equity/bonds/.

For further information, please contact the Public Relations Department at (495) 363-3232.