A total of 44,194 BKX contracts were traded, which is nearly four times more than the previous single day record high volume of 10,824 contracts set on January 24, 2005.
Yesterday, BKX contracts ranked first, as measured by volume, among all sector index options traded on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and ranked second, using the same measure, among all equity options traded at PHLX.
The BKX is comprised of 24 national money center and leading regional banks and is widely used on Wall Street to gauge the state of the banking industry. Options on the BKX trade exclusively at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and are used by traders and institutional money managers to anticipate and respond to fundamental shifts in the banking sector. PHLX XL provides a fully electronic trading platform for deep and liquid markets for the BKX and to assure that the composition is highly representative of the banking industry, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods evaluates the index at least annually.
