The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that 312,528,471 total options contracts were traded in December, which is a 2.43 percent decrease compared to the previous December when 320,324,954 contracts were traded.
Total options trading volume for the year stood at 4,003,871,308 contracts, off last year’s record year by 12.25 percent with 4,562,748,194 total options contracts exchanged. This marks the second time annual volume was over 4 billion contracts and 2012 as the second highest volume year on record. Equity options volume came in at 3,681,820,659 contracts, 12.85 percent less than the 4,224,604,529 contracts traded the year prior.
Last year also saw $1.36 trillion in options premium change hands, the sixth consecutive year above $1 trillion and the third highest amount after 2008’s $1.9 trillion.
OCC also reported these volume highlights for the month of December:
- December equity options volume was 285,492,281 contracts, down 4.42 percent compared to the 298,701,504 contracts in the previous December.
- December average daily total options volume was 15,626,424 contracts compared to 15,253,569 contracts in December 2011, up 2.44 percent.
- Month-end open interest for December 2012 was 262,727,950 contracts vs. December 2011 with 292,858,799 contracts, down 10.29 percent.
More details on historical options trading data are available at www.OptionsEducation.org.