The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) announced today that total OCC cleared volume in February reached 357,275,834 contracts. This represents a 35 percent increase over the February 2010 volume of 264,435,951 contracts. OCC year-to-date total contract volume is up 28 percent from 2010 with 738,833,911 contracts.
Options: Exchange-listed options trading in the U.S. for the month of February was up 35 percent over February 2010. February is typically one of the lower trading volume months of the year, but February 2011 is the eighth highest monthly volume on record. Year-to-date average daily contract volume for equity options is up 27 percent from 2010 with 17,609,178 contracts.
Futures: Futures cleared by OCC in February rose to 3,061,598, a 53 percent increase over February of last year. Equity futures volume reached 177,910 contracts in February, a 40 percent decrease over the same month last year where were 296,470 contracts were traded. Index and other futures volume came in at 2,883,439 this month and show a year-to-date average of 148,580 daily contracts.
Securities Lending: OCC’s stock loan program, including OTC and AQS, saw a 67 percent increase in new loan activity over February 2010 with 64,098 new loan transactions in February. Year-to-date securities lending activity is up 76 percent from 2010 with 136,592 new loan transactions in 2011. OCC’s stock loan program had an average daily notional value of $12,411,274,208.