OCC has calculated that its securities lending activity was up 13 percent in new loans with 236,202 transactions last month.
Year-to-date stock loan activity increased 26 percent from 2017 with 694,058 new loan transactions in Q1 2018.
The average daily loan value at OCC in March was $182.7 billion.
Total cleared contract volume in March reached 442,945,572 contracts, a 15 percent increase from March last year.
Overall, exchange-listed options volume reached 434,032,307 contracts in March, up 16 percent from the same period last year.
Equity options volume reached a total of 384,613,937 contracts, a 17 percent increase from March 2017.
This includes cleared exchange-traded funds options volume of 181,592,017 contracts last month, a 15 percent increase over March 2017 volume of 157,358,886 contracts.
OCC reported that this was the highest Q1 volume and highest Q1 for equity options on record.
Futures cleared by OCC reached 8,913,265 contracts in March, down 28 percent from March last year.
OCC’s average daily cleared futures volume in the first quarter was 549,817 contracts, six percent higher than Q1 last year.
Last year’s regular refund is approximately $53 million. OCC showed a special refund of 2017 clearing fees of approximately $25.7 million, representing the excess of 2017 pre-tax net income over OCC’s target revenue based on achievement of a 25 percent business risk buffer as required under the capital plan.
Payment of the total 2017 refund will be made as one payment in the Q3 2018.
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