On Wednesday, the Options Industry Council (OIC) announced that 312,528,471 total options contracts traded in December, a 2.43 percent decrease as compared to the previous year’s 320,324,954 contracts.
Total options trading volume in 2012 was 4,003,871,308 contracts, a 12.25 percent fall from last year’s record year with 4,562,748,194 total options contracts. This marks the second time annual volume surpassed 4 billion contracts with 2012 representing the second highest volume year on record, according to an OIC press release.
Equity options volume for 2012 was 3,681,820,659 contracts, a 12.85 percent decline from 2011’s 4,224,604,529 contracts.
In addition, 2012 saw $1.36 trillion in options premium change hands–a sixth straight year above $1 trillion and the third greatest amount after 2008?s $1.9 trillion.
?OCC also reported these December volume highlights:
- December equity options volume was 285,492,281 contracts, down 4.42 percent as compared to the previous December’s 298,701,504 contracts.
- December average daily total options volume was 15,626,424 contracts, up 2.44 percent as compared to the previous December’s 15,253,569 contracts.?
- ?Month-end open interest for December was 262,727,950 contracts vs. December 2011’s 292,858,799 contracts (a 10.29 percent decline).