* Yesterday, the Board of Directors was set to vote on extending the trading schedule until 23:15 hrs, as well as on the cooperation with Societe Generale and Nomura

The extension of the trading program on the derivatives market of Sibiu until 23:15, when the options and derivatives close in the United States, was going to be put up for a vote in the meeting of the Board of Directors of Sibex yesterday.

The extension of the trading program was repeatedly requested by domestic speculators, eager to seize any potential price differences between the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in Sibiu and those in New York, and was also included in the program which helped Cristian Sima get elected as president of the Sibiu Exchange.

Florin Cătinaş, an analyst at "WBS Romania", the brokerage firm which took on the role of market maker on the DEDJIA contracts of Sibiu, claims that the extension of the trading schedule would allow domestic investors to use more trading strategies. He said: "The extension of the derivatives trading schedule in Sibex until 23:15 would allow investors to benefit from the volatility of American exchanges. The more alternatives made available to investors, the more trading strategies they will be able to implement. The extension of the trading program was not someone"s whim; several investors requested this, since they want to be able to trade on the market of Sibiu, for the entire time that the DJIA index is being traded and calculated in the United States.

Also, trading in the EURUSD pair, gold and oil would benefit from an extended schedule, which would be close to that of the foreign platforms.

There are multiple benefits to this, such as lower costs for investors, since in general, trading on foreign platforms involves commissions for the currency transfers between Romanian and foreign banks. Also, Romanian cu