Exemption of Transactions in Certain Options and Futures on Security Indexes From Section 31 of the Exchange Act

The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") is, by rule, exempting two classes of securities from the fee and assessment requirements of Section 31 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"): options on narrow-based security indexes and futures on narrow-based security indexes. In light of the very low amount of Section 31 fees currently collected on options on narrow- based security indexes, the Commission is granting the exemption for options on such indexes to relieve certain national securities exchanges of the burden of having to calculate whether an index is narrow-based or broad-based. The Commission is granting the exemption for futures on narrow-based security indexes to promote a level playing field between options and futures.