The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that total options trading volume in May was 359,310,820 contracts. While this is down 11.47 percent compared to May of last year when 405,860,027 contracts traded, last month is still the second highest May on record only behind May 2010 which was a peak month for options volume, partly as a result of the ‘Flash Crash.’
Average daily trading volume for May was 17,110,039 contracts, keeping up a record pace for 2011 as average daily trading volume for the month of May is 10.58 percent higher than average daily volume for 2010. Additionally, year-to-date volume stood at 1,844,620,084 contracts at the end of May, 9.04 percent higher than the same point last year when 1,691,614,252 contracts were traded. Average daily trading volume for 2011 is 17,908,933 contracts, up 7.99 percent over the 16,584,454 contracts average traded in the same period last year.
OIC also reported that equity options volume in May came in at 336,176,810 contracts, down 9.25 percent compared to the same period last year. Daily equity options volume had an average of 16,008,420 contracts per day in May, which is 13.57 percent lower than the year-ago level of 18,522,423. Year-to-date equity options volume was 1,723,240,326 contracts, which is 10.63 percent higher than the same point last year when 1,557,710,476 contracts were traded.