OCC Cleared Contract Volume up Nine Percent in March

Futures volume up 68 percent in March, highest month ever

Index options volume up 18 percent

Securities lending activity up 25 percent in March and 21 percent year-to-date

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OCC, the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization, announced today that total cleared contract volume in March reached 386,877,373 contracts, a nine percent increase from March 2016. This was the highest level of options volume cleared in March by OCC in the last five years. OCC's year-to-date volume is down one percent with 1,058,670,212 cleared contracts in the first quarter of 2017, compared to 1,064,617,055 contracts in the first quarter of 2016.

Options: Overall exchange-listed options volume reached 374,481,795 contracts in March, up eight percent from March 2016. Equity options volume reached a total of 329,657,794 contracts, a seven percent increase from March 2016. This includes cleared ETF options volume of 157,358,886 contracts last month, an 11 percent increase over March 2016 volume of 142,234,845 contracts. Index options volume was up 18 percent with 44,824,001 contracts in March.

Futures: Futures cleared by OCC reached its highest volume ever with 12,395,578 contracts in March, up 68 percent from March 2016. OCC’s average daily cleared futures volume in the first quarter was 517,722 contracts, 51 percent higher than the first quarter of 2016.

Securities Lending: OCC's securities lending CCP activity was up 25 percent in new loans from March 2016 with 209,324 transactions last month. Year-to-date stock loan activity increased 21 percent from 2016 with 551,730 new loan transactions in the first quarter of 2017. The average daily loan value at OCC in March was $155,305,631,711.

For 2017 monthly exchange market share information, click here.

	Mar 2017	Mar 2016	Mar Total	YTD Avg.	YTD Avg.	YTD Avg.
	Total	Total	Contract %	Daily	Daily	Daily Contract
	Contract	Contract	Change vs.	Contract	Contract	% Change vs.
	Volume	Volume	Mar 2016	2017	2016	YTD 2016
Equity Options	329,657,794	309,006,428	6.68%	14,606,162	15,279,660	-4.41%
Index Options	44,824,001	38,061,799	17.8%	1,951,442	1,829,493	6.67%
Total Options	374,481,795	347,068,227	7.90%	16,557,604	17,109,153	-3.22%
Total Futures	12,395,578	7,377,772	68.0%	517,722	343,586	50.7%
Total Volume	386,877,373	354,445,999	9.15%	17,075,326	17,452,739	-2.16%

About OCC

OCC is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization and the foundation for secure markets. Founded in 1973, OCC operates under the jurisdiction of both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Derivatives Clearing Organization. Named 2016 Clearinghouse of the Year - The Americas by FOW Magazine and 2016 Clearinghouse of the Year by Global Investor/ISF Magazine, OCC now provides central counterparty (CCP) clearing and settlement services to 20 exchanges and trading platforms for options, financial futures, security futures, and securities lending transactions. More information about OCC is available at www.theocc.com.