OCC Announces New Monthly Volume Record With Over 550 Million Cleared Contracts In August

OCC announced today that total cleared contract volume reached 554,842,463 contracts in August, representing a 95 percent increase over the August 2010 volume of 285,128,314 contracts. This marks a new record volume month for OCC and the first time total cleared volume in a month surpassed a half billion contracts. The previous monthly volume record was set in March 2011 with 421,466,054 contracts. OCC year-to-date total volume is up 22 percent with 3,144,352,546 contracts.

Options: Exchange-listed options trading increased 94 percent over August 2010 and set a new monthly trading record of 550,049,407 contracts, 32 percent higher than the previous record of 417,188,575 contracts set in March 2011. Equity options trading rose 91 percent and index options trading rose 126 percent compared to the same period last year. During the month, 3 record trading days occurred on August 4^th, 5^th, and 8^th for a combined total of 117,198,188 contracts. The current daily options trading volume record was set on Monday, August 8 with 41,535,560 contracts.

Futures: Futures cleared by OCC reached 4,793,056 in August, up 192 percent from August 2010. Index and other futures volume was up 247 percent with 4,284,314 contracts. Equity futures volume increased 25 percent with 507,238 contracts in August. OCC’s year-to-date total futures volume is up 69 percent with 28,535,991 cleared contracts.

Securities Lending: OCC's stock loan program, including OTC and AQS, saw a 25 percent increase in new loan activity over August 2010 with 61,324 new loan transactions in August. Year-to-date securities lending activity is up 31 percent from 2010 with 523,958 new loan transactions in 2011. OCC's stock loan program had an average daily notional value of $13,321,571,557.