CBOE Up on Record First Quarter

CBOE Holdings (NASDAQ: CBOE) is finishing the week strong after posting record first-quarter results.

The Chicago-based firm's EPS surged 35 percent to $0.50, beating estimates of $0.47.

Revenue climbed 17.5 percent year-over-year to $142.71 million, topping the Wall Street consensus of $139.3 million.

Back to the Future

The average daily volume of futures jumped 129 percent year-over-year to 154,000. As a percentage of total trading volume, futures climbed to 3.5 percent versus 1.4 percent in Q1 2012.

Index volume also grew substantially during the quarter, rising 28 percent to 1.5 million per day. As a percentage of total trading volume, indexes climbed from about a quarter to just over a third of all trades.

Meanwhile, equities and exchange-traded products dropped considerably, with daily volumes falling 31 and 16 percent, respectively. As a percentage of daily trading volume, equities dropped over 10 percent to 36.7 while exchange-traded products declined less than two percent to 25.4.

Overall trading volume declined 10.6 percent to 4.37 million per day, but average revenue per contract jumped 35 percent to $0.378. As a result, total transaction fees rose around 17 percent to $99.15 million, despite the drop in trading.

CBOE Wins Lawsuit

On March 14, CBOE announced it won a lawsuit in which the International Securities Exchange sued it for patent infringement.

Regulate This

According to an April 23 report by Bloomberg, CBOE may separate its regulatory oversight from the company. Alternatively, it may decide to have the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) assume those responsibilities, as noted Bloomberg. A decision is likely to occur after the conclusion of a current SEC investigation into the nation's largest options exchange's practices as a self-regulatory organization, as noted the report.

Good Option for Shareholders

On Wednesday, CBOE declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 on its common stock. It will be paid on June 21 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 31.

Market Reaction

CBOE has been on a very gradual climb for the past year. The stock eclipsed the $37 mark on Monday and has closed above it every day this week. Now, on word of its successful first quarter, it has climbed to around $37.60 as of this writing.

CBOE is up around 0.25 percent on Friday.