[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 192 (Wednesday, October 2, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51478-51479]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-25223]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
[Release No. 34-37732; File No. SR-CBOE-96-29]


Self-Regulatory Organizations; Order Approving a Proposed Rule 
Change by the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated, Relating to 
the Exercise of American-style Index Options

September 26, 1996.

I. Introduction

    On April 26, 1996, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated 
(``CBOE'' or ``Exchange'') filed a proposed rule change with the 
Securities and Exchange Commission (``SEC`' or ``Commission''), 
pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 
(``Act'') \1\ and Rule 19b-4 thereunder,\2\ to adopt new CBOE Rule 
24.18 which prohibits the exercise of an American-style index option 
series after the holder has entered into an offsetting closing sale 
(writing) transaction.
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    \1\ 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1).
    \2\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4.
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    Notice of the proposal was published for comment and appeared in 
the Federal Register on August 15, 1996.\3\ No comment letters were 
received on the proposed rule change. This order approves the 
Exchange's proposal.
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    \3\ See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 37540 (August 8, 
1996), 61 FR 42455.
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II. Description of the Proposal

    As noted in CBOE's Regulatory Circular RG 96-11,\4\ the rules and 
procedures of The Options Clearing Corporation (``OCC'') permit a 
holder of an American-style option \5\ to exercise that options at any 
time up to the exercise cut-off time on any day, other than the final 
trading day, even if the holder had entered into an offsetting closing 
sale transaction earlier that day. This result stems from the fact that 
on such days OCC processes opening purchase transactions and exercises 
before it processes closing sales transactions, so that option 
purchasers remain holders of their options on OCC's books for the 
purpose of exercise without regard to their closing sales that day.
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    \4\ See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 36797 (January 31, 
1996), 61 FR 4691 (February 7, 1996) (File No. SR-CBOE-96-03).
    \5\ An American-style option may be exercised at any time prior 
to expiration.
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    The Exchange is concerned that this result may be confusing to 
investors--because it may give the appearance that investors are able 
to exercise the same options which they have previously sold--and lead 
to a perception that this result is unfair to writers of American-style 
index options that are in the money by subjecting them to a potentially 
increased ``timing risk'' of the type described under ``Special Risks 
of Index Options'' on pages 73-74 of the risk disclosure document 
entitled ``Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options'' 
(February 1994).\6\
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    \6\ This document is generally known as the Options Disclosure 
Document or ``ODD''.
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    Additionally, the Exchange believes that the average retail 
customer might not understand how investors could exercise options 
which they believed they no longer owned. The Exchange represents that, 
during the period from November 1993, through December 1995, almost all 
of the gross exercises in customers' accounts were effected at one 
clearing firm on behalf of a single customer that is a foreign 
professional trading account. Accordingly, the Exchange believes that 
retail customers might view the gross exercise ability as giving 
professional traders an unfair advantage over retail customers and that 
such perception could lead to the diminished popularity of Standard and 
Poor's 100 (``OEX'') index options for retail customers.\7\
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    \7\ See Letter from Michael L. Meyer, Attorney, Schiff Hardin & 
Waite, to John Ayanian, Attorney, Office of Market Supervision 
(``OMS''), Division of Market Regulation (``Market Regulation''), 
Commission, dated June 17, 1996. OEX index options are the only 
American-style index options currently traded at the CBOE. All other 
CBOE index option are European-style, with exercise only permitted 
upon their expiration.
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    To eliminate this possible perception of unfairness, the proposed 
rule would prohibit CBOE members from effecting an exercise of an OEX 
options series (or any other American-style index option series 
subsequently listed by the Exchange), whether on the member's own 
behalf or on behalf of a customer, if the member knew or had reason to 
know that the exercise was for more option contracts than the ``net 
long position'' of the account for which the exercise is to be made. 
For this purpose, the ``net long position'' in an account is the net 
position of the account in options of a given series at the opening of 
business of the day of exercise, plus the total number of such options 
purchased on that day in opening purchase transactions up to the time 
of exercise, less the total number of such options sold on that day in 
closing sale transactions up to the time of exercise.
    In order to prevent persons from circumventing the proposed rule by 
designating a sale as ``opening'' so as to maintain a net long position 
capable of being exercised, and then redesignating the sale as 
``closing'' by means of an adjustment later in the day if in fact the 
long position has not been exercised, the rule would prohibit a member 
from adjusting the designation of an opening transaction to a closing 
transaction except to remedy mistakes or errors made in good faith.
    A market maker's transactions are not required to be marked as 
opening or closing. Rather, a market maker's purchase and sales 
transactions are netted by OCC every day after exercises are processed. 
As a result, it is impossible to tell whether a particular transaction 
by a market maker is intended as an opening or closing transaction. 
Under OCC's processing procedures, unmarked market makers' transactions 
are in effect treated as opening transactions prior to the processing 
of exercises and as closing transactions thereafter. For the purpose of 
applying the prohibition of the proposed rule, every market maker 
transaction would be treated as a closing transaction to the extent the 
market maker has pre-existing positions (including positions resulting 
from transactions effected earlier that day) which could be netted 
against the transaction. For example, if a market maker is long 10 
option contracts of a series and sells 15 contracts of that series, the 
sale will be deemed, under the proposed rule, to be a closing sale 
transaction for 10 contracts and an

[[Page 51479]]

opening sale transaction for 5 contracts, resulting in a net short 
position of 5 contracts. If the market maker then purchases 20 
contracts, the purchase will be deemed a closing purchase for 5 
contracts and an opening purchase for 15 contracts, resulting in a net 
long position 15 contracts. Under the proposed rule, the market maker 
would be permitted to exercise only those 15 contracts. In the absence 
of the proposed rule, the market maker would have been able to exercise 
30 contracts, representing his gross long position, before netting 
against this position the 15 contracts sold.
    The Exchange notes that the proposed rule is not intended to affect 
OCC's processing rules and procedures. If a member submitted an 
exercise notice to OCC in violation of the proposed CBOE rule, the 
exercise would be processed by OCC in accordance with its procedures. 
In that case, the proposed CBOE rule would be enforced solely through 
the Exchange's disciplinary procedures.
    The Exchange emphasizes that the proposed rule has been adopted to 
eliminate the perception that a holder's ability to exercise options 
that had been the subject of closing transactions might create enhanced 
risk to writers of OEX options. However, it is not clear that the 
writers of in-the-money OEX options will, in fact, be subject to less 
risk as the result of the proposed rule. Such writers should continue 
to anticipate that they could be assigned an exercise of their options 
positions, especially as expiration approaches. (For example, the 
proposed rule would not prohibit the exercise of an OEX option held in 
a net long position before--even seconds before--an opening sales 
transaction in that option has been effected.) It is possible that the 
early exercise of OEX options will continue at the same level after the 
proposed rule becomes effective as before.
    Upon the effectiveness of the proposed rule, the Exchange would 
modify Regulatory Circular RG 96-11 to describe the proposed rule. 
Three examples were given in the Regulatory Circular as originally 
published on January 17, 1996. These three examples would be modified 
to read as follows (italicized language is proposed to be added; 
language in brackets is proposed to be deleted):
    Example 1: Investor X is long 15 call option contracts of a series 
at the opening of a trading day other than the final trading day. 
During that day, X purchases 20 contracts of that series in opening 
purchase transactions and sells 10 contracts in closing sale 
transactions. X will be able under OCC's rules to exercise 35 contracts 
of that series that day. However, in the case of American-style index 
options only (i.e., OEX options), CBOE Rule 24.18 would prohibit a 
member who knows or has reason to know of the closing sale transactions 
from exercising on X's behalf more than the net long position of 25 
contracts at any time at or after the closing sale of 10 contracts.
    Example 2: Investor Y is short 20 call option contracts of a series 
at the opening of such a trading day. During the day, Y purchases 20 
contracts of that series in opening purchase transactions. Y will be 
able to exercise 20 contracts of that series that day, and will remain 
short the 20 contracts. However, in the case of OEX option contracts, 
if Y's transactions had been effected in a market-marker's account, the 
purchase would have been deemed to have been a closing transaction for 
the purposes of CBOE Rule 24.18 and would have been offset by Y's short 
position, resulting in no net long position to exercise.
    Example 3: Market-maker Z is short 100 call options contracts at 
the opening of that trading day. During the day, Z purchases 100 
contracts and sells 100 contracts of that series[, and Z does not mark 
the transactions as opening or closing]. Z will be able to exercise 100 
contracts of that series that day under OCC's rules. However, in the 
case of OEX option contracts, CBOE Rule 24.18 would prohibit Z from 
exercising any contracts without regard to the sale transactions, since 
the purchase transactions would be deemed to be closing transactions, 
and would be netted against his beginning short position, resulting in 
no net long position to exercises.

III. Commission Finding and Conclusions

    The Commission finds that the proposed rule change is consistent 
with the requirements of the Act and the rules and regulations 
thereunder applicable to a national securities exchange, and, in 
particular, the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act.\8\ 
Specifically, the Commission finds that the Exchange's proposal strikes 
a reasonable balance between the Commission's mandates under Section 
6(b)(5) to remove impediments to and perfect the mechanism of a free 
and open market and a national market system, while protecting 
investors and the public interest.
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    \8\ 15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5).
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    The Commission believes that it is reasonable for the Exchange to 
conclude that permitting holders of American-style index options series 
to exercise positions greater than their ``net long'' position, as 
described above, may lead to a possible perception of unfairness to 
retail investors and American-style index option writers. Effectively, 
the proposal creates an option exercise restriction upon holders of 
American-style index options, preventing such holders from exercising 
positions in excess of their net long position. The Commission believes 
that the imposition of a restriction on exercise requires a careful 
balancing of the Exchange's need for such a restriction with the impact 
that such a restriction will impose upon options market participants, 
including market professionals and individual investors.
    Based on representations of the Exchange, the Commission believes 
that the proposed limited restriction on exercise is reasonable and 
should not adversely impact (1) the options exercise practices of 
existing OEX options market participants, (2) market participants' 
ability to utilize the options markets, or (3) trading in American-
style index options generally. Particularly, the Commission believes 
that the Exchange has reasonably balanced the impact of the proposed 
rule change on option holders with its desire to eliminate the possible 
perception of unfairness on behalf of retail customers and American-
style index option writers.
    The Commission expects the Exchange to promptly modify Regulatory 
Circular RG96-11 to describe the proposed rule and distribute the new 
circular to its membership. Moreover, the Commission notes that the 
CBOE has established surveillance guidelines that should help to ensure 
compliance with the new policy.
    It is therefore ordered, pursuant to Section 19(b)(2) of the 
Act,\9\ that the proposed rule change (File No. SR-CBOE-96-29) is 
approved.

    \9\ 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(2).
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    For the Commission, by the Division of Market Regulation, 
pursuant to delegated authority.\10\
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    \10\ 17 CFR 200.30-3(a)(12).
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Margaret H. McFarland,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 96-25223 Filed 10-1-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8010-01-M