OCC, the world?s largest equity derivatives clearing organization, announced today that it set new annual cleared contract volume records for the U.S. exchange-listed options and futures industry.
In 2018, OCC cleared 5.24 billion total contracts and 5.14 billion options contracts. These numbers surpass the previous records, set in 2011, of 4.60 billion total contracts and 4.56 billion options contracts.
Compared to 2017, OCC had a 21.1 percent increase in total contracts cleared and a 22.6 percent increase in options contracts cleared.
Additionally, last month was the most active December in OCC?s history. Total cleared contract volume reached 436,771,941 contracts in December, up 26.2 percent compared to the December 2017 volume of 346,006,092 contracts.
Options: Overall exchange-listed options volume reached 429,078,216 contracts in December, up 27.7 percent from 335,958,673 in 2017.
Equity options volume reached a total of 376,883,978 contracts, a 27.7 percent increase from December 2017.
This includes cleared ETF options volume of 197,508,790 contracts last month, a 52.2 percent increase compared to the December 2017 volume of 129,784,607 contracts.
Index options volume was up 27.5 percent with 52,194,238 contracts in December, with average daily volume up 12.8 percent for 2018, compared to 2017.
Futures: Futures cleared by OCC reached 7,693,725 contracts in December, down 23.4 percent from December 2017. OCC?s average daily cleared futures volume for 2018 was 417,882 contracts, 24.0 percent less than 2017.