The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that total options trading volume in January came in at 257,813,513 options contracts, representing a 27.8 percent decline compared to January 2008 volume.
Despite the decline, January is still the second highest January by volume in history. Daily trading volume for 2009 is averaging 12,890,675 contracts compared to 17,007,776 contracts for January 2008, which equals a 24.2 percent decline. Additionally, average daily trading volume for January was 9 percent lower than 2008’s average daily volume of 14,160,366 contracts.
OIC also reported that equity options volume in January came in at 239,489,712 contracts, a decrease of 27.2 percent over the same period last year. Daily equity options volume had an average of 11,974,486 contracts per day in January, which is 23.5 percent lower than the year-ago level.