The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) announced today that total OCC cleared volume in March reached 353,294,816 contracts. This represents a 2 percent increase over the March 2009 volume of 346,360,655 contracts. OCC year to date total contract volume is up 8 percent from 2009 with 931,269,641 contracts.
Options: Exchange-listed options trading in the U.S for the month of March was up 1.44 percent from the previous year. Index options volume rose 15 percent higher than last year with 27,363,133 contracts in March. The year to date average daily contract for equity options is up 6.48 percent from 2009.
Futures: Futures cleared by OCC in March rose to 2,289,938 with an average daily contract of 102,770. Equity futures volume reached 385,125 contracts, a 64.87 percent increase over the same month last year where 233,598 were traded. Index and other futures volume came in at 1,904,039 this month and show a year to date average of 85,579 daily contracts.
Securities Lending: OCC's stock loan program, including OTC and AQS, saw an average daily notional value of $14,345,246,010, a 6 percent increase from February’s average open interest. The past year has seen a trend to increasing average daily stock loan transactions. As OCC expanded its stock loan program last year, it also changed the program measurement process. Therefore, precise year-on-year data will not be available until mid-year.