[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 236 (Wednesday, December 9, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 76602-76605]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-30971]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-76548; File No. SR-OCC-2015-804]


Self-Regulatory Organizations; The Options Clearing Corporation; 
Notice of No Objection to Advance Notice Filing to Modify The Options 
Clearing Corporation's Margin Methodology by Incorporating Variations 
in Implied Volatility

December 3, 2015.
    On October 5, 2015, The Options Clearing Corporation (``OCC'') 
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (``Commission'') the 
advance notice SR-OCC-2015-804 pursuant to section 806(e)(1) of the 
Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Supervision Act of 2010 (``Payment, 
Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act'') \1\ and Rule 19b-4(n)(1)(i) 
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (`` Exchange Act'').\2\ The 
advance notice was published for comment in the Federal Register on 
November 17, 2015.\3\ The Commission did not receive any comments on 
the advance notice publication. This publication serves as a notice 
that the Commission does not object to the changes set forth in the 
advance notice.
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    \1\ 12 U.S.C. 5465(e)(1). The Financial Stability Oversight 
Council designated OCC a systemically important financial market 
utility on July 18, 2012. See Financial Stability Oversight Council 
2012 Annual Report, Appendix A, http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/fsoc/Documents/2012%20Annual%20Report.pdf. Therefore, OCC is 
required to comply with the Payment, Clearing, and Settlement 
Supervision Act and file advance notices with the Commission. See 12 
U.S.C. 5465(e).
    \2\ 17 CFR 240.19b-4(n)(1)(i).
    \3\ Securities Exchange Act Release No. 76421 (November 10, 
2015), 80 FR 71900 (November 17, 2015) (SR-OCC-2015-804). OCC also 
filed a proposed rule change with the Commission pursuant to section 
19(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rule 19b-4 thereunder, seeking 
approval of changes to its rules necessary to implement the 
proposal. 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1) and 17 CFR 240.19b-4, respectively. 
See Exchange Act Release 76128 (October 13, 2015), 80 FR 63264 
(October 19, 2015) (SR-OCC-2015-016). The Commission did not receive 
any comments on the proposed rule change.
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I. Description of the Advance Notice

    According to OCC, it is modifying its margin methodology by more 
broadly incorporating variations in implied volatility within OCC's 
System for Theoretical Analysis and Numerical Simulations 
(``STANS'').\4\ As explained below, OCC believes that expanding the use 
of variations in implied volatility within STANS for substantially all 
\5\ option contracts available to be cleared by OCC that have a 
residual tenor \6\ of less than three years (``Shorter Tenor Options'') 
will enhance OCC's ability to ensure that option prices and the margin 
coverage related to such positions more appropriately reflect possible 
future market value fluctuations and better protect OCC in the event it 
must liquidate the portfolio of a suspended clearing member.
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    \4\ This proposal did not propose any changes concerning 
futures. According to OCC, OCC uses a different system to calculate 
initial margin requirements for segregated futures accounts: 
Standard Portfolio Analysis of Risk Margin Calculation System.
    \5\ According to OCC, it proposes to exclude: (i) Binary 
options, (ii) options on energy futures, and (iii) options on U.S. 
Treasury securities. OCC excluded them because: (i) They are new 
products that were introduced as OCC was completing this proposal 
and (ii) OCC did not believe that there was substantive risk if they 
were excluded at this time because they only represent a de minimis 
open interest. According to OCC, it plans to modify its margin 
methodology to accommodate these new products.
    \6\ According to OCC, the ``tenor'' of an option is the amount 
of time remaining to its expiration.
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Implied Volatility in STANS Generally

    According to OCC, STANS is OCC's proprietary risk management system 
that calculates clearing members' margin requirements. According to 
OCC, the STANS methodology uses Monte Carlo simulations to forecast 
price movement and correlations in determining a clearing member's 
margin requirement. According to OCC, under STANS, the daily margin 
calculation for each clearing member account is constructed to ensure 
OCC maintains sufficient financial resources to liquidate a defaulting 
member's positions, without loss, within the liquidation horizon of two 
business days.
    As described by OCC, the STANS margin requirement for an account is 
composed of two primary components: A base component and a stress test 
component. According to OCC, the base component is obtained from a risk

[[Page 76603]]

measure of the expected margin shortfall for an account that results 
under Monte Carlo price movement simulations. For the exposures that 
are observed regarding the account, the base component is established 
as the estimated average of potential losses higher than the 99% VaR 
\7\ threshold. In addition, OCC augments the base component using the 
stress test component. According to OCC, the stress test component is 
obtained by considering increases in the expected margin shortfall for 
an account that would occur due to: (i) Market movements that are 
especially large and/or in which certain risk factors would exhibit 
perfect or zero correlations rather than correlations otherwise 
estimated using historical data or (ii) extreme and adverse 
idiosyncratic movements for individual risk factors to which the 
account is particularly exposed.
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    \7\ The term ``value at risk'' or ``VaR'' refers to a 
statistical technique that, generally speaking, is used in risk 
management to measure the potential risk of loss for a given set of 
assets over a particular time horizon.
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    According to OCC, including variations in implied volatility within 
STANS is intended to ensure that the anticipated cost of liquidating 
each Shorter Tenor Option position in an account recognizes the 
possibility that implied volatility could change during the two 
business day liquidation time horizon in STANS and lead to 
corresponding changes in the market prices of the options. According to 
OCC, generally speaking, the implied volatility of an option is a 
measure of the expected future volatility of the value of the option's 
annualized standard deviation of the price of the underlying security, 
index, or future at exercise, which is reflected in the current option 
premium in the market. Using the Black-Scholes options pricing model, 
the implied volatility is the standard deviation of the underlying 
asset price necessary to arrive at the market price of an option of a 
given strike, time to maturity, underlying asset price and given the 
current risk-free rate. In effect, the implied volatility is 
responsible for that portion of the premium that cannot be explained by 
the then-current intrinsic value \8\ of the option, discounted to 
reflect its time value. According to OCC, it currently incorporates 
variations in implied volatility as risk factors for certain options 
with residual tenors of at least three years (``Longer Tenor 
Options'').
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    \8\ According to OCC, generally speaking, the intrinsic value is 
the difference between the price of the underlying and the exercise 
price of the option.
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Implied Volatility for Shorter Tenor Options

    OCC is proposing certain modifications to STANS to more broadly 
incorporate variations in implied volatility for Shorter Tenor Options. 
Consistent with its approach for Longer Tenor Options, OCC will model a 
volatility surface \9\ for Shorter Tenor Options by incorporating into 
the econometric models underlying STANS certain risk factors regarding 
a time series of proportional changes in implied volatilities for a 
range of tenors and absolute deltas. Shorter Tenor Option volatility 
points will be defined by three different tenors and three different 
absolute deltas, which produce nine ``pivot points.'' In calculating 
the implied volatility values for each pivot point, OCC will use the 
same type of series-level pricing data set to create the nine pivot 
points that it uses to create the pivot points used for Longer Tenor 
Options, so that the nine pivot points will be the result of a 
consolidation of the entire series-level dataset into a smaller and 
more manageable set of pivot points before modeling the volatility 
surface.
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    \9\ According to OCC, the term ``volatility surface'' refers to 
a three-dimensional graphed surface that represents the implied 
volatility for possible tenors of the option and the implied 
volatility of the option over those tenors for the possible levels 
of ``moneyness'' of the option. According to OCC, the term 
``moneyness'' refers to the relationship between the current market 
price of the underlying interest and the exercise price.
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    According to OCC, it considered incorporating more than nine pivot 
points but concluded that would not be appropriate for Shorter Tenor 
Options because: (i) Back-testing results, from January 2008 to May 
2013, revealed that using more pivot points did not produce more 
meaningful information (i.e. more pivot points produced a comparable 
number of under-margined instances) and (ii) given the large volume of 
Shorter Tenor Options, using more pivot points could increase 
computation time and, therefore, would impair OCC from making timely 
calculations.
    Under OCC's model for Shorter Tenor Options, the volatility 
surfaces will be defined using tenors of one month, three months, and 
one year with absolute deltas, in each case, of 0.25, 0.5, and 
0.75,\10\ thus resulting in the nine implied volatility pivot points. 
OCC believes that it is appropriate to focus on pivot points 
representing at- and near-the-money options because prices for those 
options are more sensitive to variations in implied volatility over the 
liquidation time horizon of two business days. According to OCC, four 
factors explain 99% variance of implied volatility movements: (i) A 
parallel shift of the entire surface; (ii) a slope or skewness with 
respect to delta; (iii) a slope with respect to time to maturity; and 
(iv) a convexity with respect to the time to maturity. According to 
OCC, the nine correlated pivot points, arranged by delta and tenor, 
give OCC the flexibility to capture these factors.
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    \10\ According to OCC, given that premiums of deep-in-the-money 
options (those with absolute deltas closer to 1.0) and deep-out-of-
the-money options (those with absolute deltas closer to 0) are 
insensitive to changes in implied volatility, in each case 
notwithstanding increases or decreases in implied volatility over 
the two business day liquidation time horizon, those higher and 
lower absolute deltas have not been selected as pivot points.
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    According to OCC, it first will use its econometric models to 
jointly simulate changes to implied volatility at the nine pivot points 
and changes to underlying prices.\11\ For each Shorter Tenor Option in 
the account of a clearing member, changes in its implied volatility 
then will be simulated according to the corresponding pivot point and 
the price of the option will be computed to determine the amount of 
profit or loss in the account under the particular STANS price 
simulation. Additionally, as OCC does today, it will continue to use 
simulated closing prices for the assets underlying options in the 
account of a clearing member that are scheduled to expire within the 
liquidation time horizon of two business days to compute the options' 
intrinsic value and use those values to help calculate the profit or 
loss in the account.\12\
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    \11\ According to OCC, STANS relies on 10,000 price simulation 
scenarios that are based generally on a historical data period of 
500 business days, which is updated monthly to keep model results 
from becoming stale.
    \12\ For such Shorter Tenor Options that are scheduled to expire 
on the open of the market rather than the close, OCC will use the 
relevant opening price for the underlying assets.
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Effects of the Proposed Change and Implementation

    OCC believes that the proposed change will enhance OCC's ability to 
ensure that STANS appropriately takes into account normal market 
conditions that OCC may encounter in the event that, pursuant to OCC 
Rule 1102, it suspends a defaulted clearing member and liquidates its 
accounts.\13\ Accordingly, OCC believes that the change will promote 
OCC's ability to

[[Page 76604]]

ensure that margin assets are sufficient to liquidate the accounts of a 
defaulted clearing member without incurring a loss.
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    \13\ According to OCC, under authority in OCC Rules 1104 and 
1106, OCC has authority to promptly liquidate margin assets and 
options positions of a suspended clearing member in the most orderly 
manner practicable, which might include, but would not be limited 
to, a private auction.
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    OCC estimates that this change generally will increase margin 
requirements overall, but will decrease margin requirements for certain 
accounts with certain positions. Specifically, OCC expects this change 
to increase aggregate margins by about 9% ($1.5 billion). OCC also 
estimates the change will most significantly affect customer accounts 
and least significantly affect firm accounts, with the effect on market 
maker accounts falling in between.
    According to OCC, it expects customer accounts to experience the 
largest margin increases because positions considered under STANS for 
customer accounts typically consist of more short than long options 
positions, and therefore reflect a greater magnitude of directional 
risk than other account types. According to OCC, positions considered 
under STANS for customer accounts typically consist of more short than 
long options positions to facilitate clearing members' compliance with 
Commission requirements for the protection of certain customer property 
under Exchange Act Rule 15c3-3(b).\14\ Therefore, OCC segregates the 
long option positions in the customer accounts of each clearing member 
and does not assign the long option positions any value when 
determining the margin for the customer account, resulting in higher 
margin.\15\
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    \14\ 17 CFR 240.15c3-3(b).
    \15\ See OCC Rule 601(d)(1). According to OCC, pursuant to OCC 
Rule 611, however, a clearing member, subject to certain conditions, 
may instruct OCC to release segregated long option positions from 
segregation. Long positions may be released, for example, if they 
are part of a spread position. Once released from segregation, OCC 
receives a lien on each unsegregated long securities option carried 
in a customers' account and therefore OCC permits the unsegregated 
long to offset corresponding short option positions in the account.
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    OCC expects margin requirements to decrease for accounts with 
underlying exposure and implied volatility exposure in the same 
direction, such as concentrated call positions, due to the negative 
correlation typically observed between these two factors. According to 
OCC, over the back-testing period, about 28% of the observations for 
accounts on the days studied had lower margins under the proposed 
methodology and the average reduction was about 2.7%. Parallel results 
will be made available to the membership in the weeks ahead of 
implementation.
    To help clearing members prepare for the proposed change, OCC has 
provided clearing members with an information memorandum explaining the 
proposal, including the planned timeline for its implementation, and 
discussed with certain other clearinghouses the likely effects of the 
change on OCC's cross-margin agreements with them. OCC also published 
an information memorandum to notify clearing members of the submission 
of this filing to the Commission. Subject to all necessary regulatory 
approvals regarding the proposed change, OCC intends to begin making 
parallel margin calculations with and without the changes in the margin 
methodology. The commencement of the calculations will be announced by 
an information memorandum, and OCC will provide the calculations to 
clearing members each business day. OCC also will provide at least 
thirty days prior notice to clearing members before implementing the 
change. OCC believes that clearing members will have sufficient time 
and data to plan for the potential increases in their respective margin 
requirements.

II. Discussion and Commission Findings

    Although the Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act does 
not specify a standard of review for an advance notice, its stated 
purpose is instructive.\16\ The stated purpose is to mitigate systemic 
risk in the financial system and promote financial stability by, among 
other things, promoting uniform risk management standards for 
systemically important financial market utilities and strengthening the 
liquidity of systemically important financial market utilities.\17\ 
Section 805(a)(2) of the Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision 
Act \18\ authorizes the Commission to prescribe risk management 
standards for the payment, clearing, and settlement activities of 
designated clearing entities and financial institutions engaged in 
designated activities for which it is the Supervisory Agency or the 
appropriate financial regulator. Section 805(b) of the Payment, 
Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act \19\ states that the objectives 
and principles for the risk management standards prescribed under 
section 805(a) shall be to:
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    \16\ See 12 U.S.C. 5461(b).
    \17\ Id.
    \18\ 12 U.S.C. 5464(a)(2).
    \19\ 12 U.S.C. 5464(b).
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     Promote robust risk management;
     promote safety and soundness;
     reduce systemic risks; and
     support the stability of the broader financial system.
    The Commission has adopted risk management standards under section 
805(a)(2) of the Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act \20\ 
and the Exchange Act (``Clearing Agency Standards'').\21\ The Clearing 
Agency Standards require registered clearing agencies to establish, 
implement, maintain, and enforce written policies and procedures that 
are reasonably designed to meet certain minimum requirements for their 
operations and risk management practices on an ongoing basis.\22\ 
Therefore, it is appropriate for the Commission to review advance 
notices against these Clearing Agency Standards and the objectives and 
principles of these risk management standards as described in section 
805(b) of the Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act.\23\
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    \20\ 12 U.S.C. 5464(a)(2).
    \21\ See 17 CFR 240.17Ad-22. Securities Exchange Act Release No. 
68080 (October 22, 2012), 77 FR 66220 (November 2, 2012) (S7-08-11).
    \22\ Id.
    \23\ 12 U.S.C. 5464(b).
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    The Commission believes that the proposal in the advance notice is 
consistent with the Clearing Agency Standards, in particular, Rule 
17Ad-22(b)(2) under the Exchange Act.\24\ Rule 17Ad-22(b)(2) under the 
Exchange Act \25\ requires OCC to establish, implement, maintain and 
enforce written policies and procedures reasonably designed to use 
margin requirements to limit its credit exposures to participants under 
normal market conditions and use risk-based models and parameters to 
set margin requirements, among other things. Through this proposal, OCC 
is modifying its margin methodology, which is designed to use margin 
requirements to limit its credit exposures to clearing members holding 
Shorter Tenor Options under normal market conditions. Specifically, OCC 
is modifying its risk-based model, STANS, to set margin requirements in 
a way that includes changes in implied volatility for Shorter Tenor 
Options. With this change in place, STANS is now designed to recognize 
a range of possible changes in implied volatility during the two 
business day liquidation time horizon that could lead to corresponding 
changes in the market prices of Shorter Tenor Options. Therefore, OCC's 
change is consistent with Rule 17Ad-22(b)(2) under the Exchange 
Act.\26\
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    \24\ 17 CFR 240.17Ad-22(b)(2).
    \25\ Id.
    \26\ Id.
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    The Commission believes that OCC's proposal is consistent with the 
objectives and principles described in

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section 805(b) of the Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision 
Act,\27\ including that it is consistent with promoting robust risk 
management and promoting safety and soundness. The Commission believes 
that the proposal is consistent with promoting risk management because, 
with this change, STANS is now designed to recognize the possibility 
that implied volatility could change during the two business day 
liquidation time horizon and lead to corresponding changes in the 
market prices of the options. This change to STANS is consistent with 
promoting robust risk management because it is designed so that OCC now 
will be less likely to face operational disruption in the event of a 
participant default.
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    \27\ 12 U.S.C. 5464(b).
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    This change also is consistent with promoting safety and soundness 
of OCC. As a result of this proposal, STANS is now designed to 
recognize a range of possible changes in implied volatility during the 
two business day liquidation time horizon that could lead to 
corresponding changes in the market prices of Shorter Tenor Options. 
This change is designed to enable OCC to more accurately calculate the 
amount of margin a member must post, and, therefore, make it less 
likely, in the event of a member default, that OCC will need to access 
mutualized clearing fund deposits to cover losses associated with such 
member's default, which is consistent with promoting safety and 
soundness.
    For these reasons, the Commission does not object to the advance 
notice.

III. Conclusion

    It is therefore noticed, pursuant to section 806(e)(1)(I) of the 
Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision Act,\28\ that the 
Commission does not object to the proposed change, and authorizes OCC 
to implement the change in this advance notice (SR-OCC-2015-804) as of 
the date of this notice or the date of an order by the Commission 
approving a proposed rule change that reflects rule changes that are 
consistent with this advance notice (SR-OCC-2015-016), whichever is 
later.
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    \28\ 12 U.S.C. 5465(e)(1)(I).

    By the Commission.
Robert W. Errett,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-30971 Filed 12-8-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P