On Thursday, the Options Industry Council (OIC) announced that 324,329,913 total options contracts traded in October; this represented a 17.05 percent decline from the previous year’s 390,982,436 contracts. ?
On average, 15,444,282 contracts traded on a daily basis, down 17.05 percent from last October’s 18,618,211 daily average. According to OIC, October’s volume numbers reflect ?two less trading days thanks to the market’s close from Hurricane Sandy earlier this week.
Year-to-date volume is 3,355,815,364 contracts, down 13.91 percent as compared to last year’s 3,898,045,930 contracts. Daily average year-to-date volume is 16,056,533 contracts; this is off 13.50 percent from 2011’s 18,562,123 contracts.
October equity options volume (options on individual stocks and ETFs) was 297,991,460 contracts, down 17.24 percent as compared to last year’s 360,081,121 contracts. On average, 14,190,070 equity options contracts traded each day in October, which is down 17.24 percent from last October’s 17,146,720 daily average.
To-date, 3,092,072,202 equity options contracts have traded, down 14.31 percent as compared to last year’s 3,608,405,887 contracts.?