US options cleared by the OCC passed the four billion contract mark for the first time in 2011.
The year also marked the ninth consecutive year of record volume for OCC. Overall cleared contract volume reached 4.6bn, up 17% from 2010’s total.
December’s cleared volume was down 6% at 322m, as compared to the 344m reported for December 2010.
Exchange-listed options trading in December was also down from the previous year’s total, dipping 6% to 320m.
Average daily options volume in 2011 was 18.1m contracts, around 2.6m contracts per day more than the daily average in 2010.
Total options cleared by the OCC in 2011 passed 4.56bn, a 17% increase over 2010's annual...