OCC Announces Cleared Contract Volume Declined 10% In March While Securities Lending Volume Rose 18%

OCC announced that cleared contract volume reached 379,763,970 contracts in March, representing a 10 percent decrease from the March 2011 volume of 421,466,054 contracts. OCC ended the first quarter with total volume reaching 1,068,689,268 contracts, exceeding 1 billion contracts in the first quarter for the second time in history.

Options: Exchange-listed options trading volume reached 376,246,042 contracts in March, a 10 percent decrease from March 2011. Average daily options trading volume in March was 17,102,093 contracts, 6 percent lower than the 18,138,634 contracts in March of last year. Year-to-date options trading volume is down 8 percent from 2011 with 1,061,109,209 contracts.

Futures: Futures cleared by OCC reached 3,517,928 contracts in March, down 18 percent from 2011. Equity futures came in at 688,098 contracts this month, up 44 percent from 2011. Index and other futures reached 2,829,735 contracts, down 25 percent from 2011. OCC is averaging 122,259 cleared futures contracts per day in 2011.

Securities Lending: OCC's stock loan program, including OTC and AQS, saw an 18 percent increase in new loan activity over March 2011 with 83,278 new loan transactions in March. Year-to-date securities lending activity is up 4 percent from 2011 with 215,324 new loan transactions in 2012. OCC's stock loan program had an average daily notional value of $23,787,253,798.