Moscow Exchange Opens at 9:00 From 14 September and Adds Perpetual Futures

In brief: From Monday, 14 September 2026, the main trading session on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) equity, derivatives, FX and precious metals markets starts at 9:00 MSK instead of the previous 10:00. The main session is an hour longer and now lasts 10 hours; calculation and publication of the main MOEX indices also start at 9:00. At the same time the exchange is expanding its range of perpetual futures: on 8 and 15 September, in two stages, it is launching 20 contracts on US company stocks, followed by the first perpetual futures on bitcoin and ether indices for qualified investors.

What exactly changed in the schedule

The morning and evening sessions remain — what changes is the boundary between morning and main trading. In practice this means liquidity, volumes and "real" price discovery begin an hour earlier: previously the first hour of the day ran in morning-session mode with a thinner order book; now that hour has main-session status.

The exchange explains the move with two arguments: the additional hour matters to institutional participants and to clients in Siberia and the Far East, for whom the old schedule created an awkward window — in local time the main session opened in the middle of the day.

What this changes for a trader in practice

• The open is now "earlier and harder". The first hour of the day is now the main session, not the morning one: orders from large participants arrive earlier, and gaps after overnight foreign news are played out at 9:00.
• Indices are calculated from 9:00. Any strategy tied to the IMOEX/RTS value at the open needs to be reconfigured.
• Algorithms and bots. Trading session schedules in terminals, scripts and risk-management systems need updating — otherwise the algorithm will miss the first hour or, conversely, send orders in the wrong mode.
• Derivatives market. The change also affects futures and options, which matters in the week of the quarterly expiration on 17 September (see our breakdown of September expirations).

20 perpetual futures on US stocks: two dates, the full list

The second major change is the expansion of the perpetual futures range. These are one-day cash-settled contracts with automatic rollover: they have no fixed settlement date and are extended daily.

The launch is in two stages.

8 September 2026 — the first 10 contracts:

15 September 2026 — 10 more contracts:

Key contract parameters:

• settlement in Russian rubles;
• quotes in US dollars, based on MOEX fixings calculated as the arithmetic mean of prices sampled every 15 seconds;
• funding parameters — K1 = 0%, K2 = 0.35%;
• no delivery of the underlying: these are cash-settled contracts, and no US shares are credited to the account.

According to Maria Patrikeeva, managing director of the Moscow Exchange derivatives market, open interest in perpetual contracts has grown 36% to exceed RUB 450 billion.

Perpetual futures on bitcoin and ether

Crypto derivatives are a separate track. The exchange has announced plans to launch in September the first two perpetual futures on bitcoin and ether indices with settlement in rubles. Access is for qualified investors only.

"We plan to expand this range and bring the number of coins to ten. In September we will launch the first two perpetual futures on bitcoin and ether indices," — Maria Patrikeeva, managing director of the Moscow Exchange derivatives market (17 August 2026). (translated from Russian)

The format is fundamentally new for the Russian market: until now only quarterly and monthly derivatives contracts were available on the Moscow Exchange. It is important to understand that these are cash-settled contracts on a cryptocurrency index, not ownership of the cryptocurrency itself — you cannot buy bitcoin through such a futures contract, only gain exposure to its price in rubles.

In total, 34 new instruments have already appeared on the Moscow Exchange derivatives market in 2026, with about 30 more planned for launch by the end of the year.

How a perpetual futures contract differs from a regular one

The main trap of a perpetual contract is precisely the funding. A position opened "just to have a look" and forgotten for several weeks can quietly eat a noticeable share of the deposit through regular payments, even if the price of the underlying has not changed.

Risks: these are leveraged instruments

A futures contract is a margin instrument. You post initial margin that is substantially less than the contract value, which means you are working with leverage. This creates three specific risks:

1. Losses are not limited to the initial margin. On a sharp move against the position the broker will close it forcibly, and on a gap the account can go negative — the shortfall will have to be topped up.
2. The exchange can raise initial margin. Ahead of events with expected volatility (for example, the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) meeting on 16 September) margin requirements are raised, and a position that fit the account yesterday requires more money today.
3. Currency and "fixing" risk. Contracts on US stocks are quoted in dollars but settled in rubles: the outcome depends on both the stock's move and the exchange rate. The fixing is calculated by the exchange — the contract price does not have to match the stock's price on the US venue at the same moment.

For how to calculate leverage and at what price move liquidation occurs, see "Leverage and liquidation". For what happened on the Russian market last week, see our review "MOEX Russia Index after the Bank of Russia pause".

Sources

• Moscow Exchange moves the start of the main session to 09:00 from 14 September — Interfax
• Moscow Exchange to launch 20 perpetual futures on global assets — moex.com
• Main trading on the Moscow Exchange to start an hour earlier from 14 September — Vedomosti
• Moscow Exchange to launch perpetual futures on bitcoin and ether in September — Investing.com, 17 August 2026
• Moscow Exchange to launch 20 perpetual futures on global assets — Vedomosti, 3 September 2026