The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that 361,071,621 total options contracts were traded in January. That is a 7.65 percent increase from January last year when 335,399,999 contracts were traded, and the highest monthly volume since May 2012.
Average daily volume in January stood at 17,193,887 contracts, a 2.53 percent increase over the 16,770,000 contract average in January 2012. Equity options volume came in at 327,265,575 contracts, a 4.43 percent increase from last January.
Last month marks the second highest January trading volume on record, behind January 2011. January trading represents a strong start to the year, with average daily volume 7.36 percent higher than the 2012 average daily volume of 16,015,416 contracts.