OCC Cleared Contract Volume Declined 12% In January

OCC announced today that total cleared contract volume January reached 337,222,938 contracts, a 12 percent decline from the January 2011 volume of 381,558,077 contracts. Despite this decline, January 2012 is now the third highest January volume on record.

Options: Exchange-listed options trading in January reached 335,399,999 contracts, an 11 percent decline from January 2011. Equity options trading volume fell 12 percent from the previous January with 313,363,017 contracts. Index options trading decreased 7 percent from the previous January with 22,036,982 contracts. Average daily options volume for the month of January was 16,770,000 contracts.

Futures: Futures cleared by OCC reached 1,822,939 contracts in January, a 41 percent decline from January 2011. Equity futures volume reached 301,804 contracts, an 82 percent increase from the previous January. Index and other futures volume fell 48 percent from January 2011 with 1,521,113 contracts. OCC cleared an average of 91,147 futures contracts per day during the month of January.

Securities Lending: OCC's stock loan program, including OTC and AQS, saw new loan activity fall 13 percent compared to January 2011 with 63,226 new loan transactions in January. OCC's stock loan program has an average daily notional value of $19,787,285,516.