CHICAGO (July 16, 2008) -- The Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) announced that a new daily trading volume record was set on Tuesday, July 15, 2008, when 25,264,883 contracts were traded, 6.4 percent higher than the previous record of 23,745,650 contracts set on Aug. 16, 2007.

Equity options trading set a new record with 22,941,369 contracts, a 10.7 percent increase over the previous record of 20,730,201 contracts on November 8, 2007.

"Options trading volume typically rises with volatility and yesterday's spike in volatility came on top of higher than average trading over the past few weeks," said Michael E. Cahill, OCC President and Chief Operating Officer. "OCC's rigorous capacity planning allows us to smoothly process such a peak day -- one that was twice the volume of the average day last July."

More information about the OCC is available through its Web site at OptionsClearing.com.

Related story: CBOE Launches Oil Volatility Index (OVX)

Michael Shulman

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