The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that 310,936,920 total options contracts were traded in August. This is 43.47 percent less than the all-time monthly volume record of 550,049,407 contracts traded in August 2011.
August is traditionally one of the lower volume months of any year, and last month was the lowest monthly volume recorded in 2012. However, it was the best August volume total outside of the August 2011 volume record. August also marked the 24th consecutive month the options industry has recorded at least 300 million contracts in trading volume.
Trading volume so far for 2012 stood at 2,701,857,820 contracts, which is 13.29 percent lower than the 3,115,816,555 contracts traded throughout the same period last year. Volume in 2011 was 17 percent higher than the previous record set in 2010, while 2012 volume is on pace for the second best annual volume, running 3 percent above the 2010 level.
Equity options volume (options on individual stocks and ETFs) for August came in at 286,100,861 contracts, down 43 percent compared to August of last year when 501,947,732 contracts were traded. On average, 12,439,168 equity options contracts changed hands each day in August, which is 43 percent less than the daily average of 21,823,814 contracts from August 2011. Equity options traded so far this year stood at 2,492,678,579 contracts, down 13.7 percent compared to the 2,888,506,287 contracts traded in the same period last year.
