Options Volume Drops 12% in May
Options trading volume fell nearly 12 % in May with about 360 million contracts changing hands at the nine US options exchanges, according to the Options Industry Council. In May 2010, more than 405 million contracts traded.
However, average daily trading volume last month was a little more than 17 million contracts, a rise of nearly 11% from full-year 2010.
Year-to-date volume and average-daily volume in the options marketplace are on a record pace this year despite May’s downturn. Year-to-date 1.8 billion options have traded, a rise of more than 9% from last year. The average-daily volume through May is at 17.9 million options, up almost 8% from the same period a year ago.
Volume on the equity option side in May hit 336.2 million contracts, down 9.3% from May 2010. The average daily volume for equity options was 16 million contracts, down nearly 14% from the same month a year ago.
Your intraday options trading update.
High Options Volume by Strike
Weekly contracts in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) are topping the active list today. The SPY Jun Weekly 133 Put traded more than 96,000 contracts, and is up .70 to .90.The SPY Weekly Jun 132 and 134 Puts also busy with both trading a combined 112,000 contracts. A SPY Jun 132 Put traded more than 70,000 contracts and is up .87 to 1.63
Most active equity is Nokia (NYSE: NOK) with its NOK Jun 7 Call down .06 to .18 on 49,000 contracts. Nokia was creamed following Goldman downgrade.
The iShares Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) trades busy in its IWM Jun 82 Put, up .58 to 1.10 on 47,000 options.
Find more option analysis and trading ideas at Options Trading Strategies.
Stocks/Underlying – Big Daily Change in Option Volume
Dollar General (NYSE: DG) trades nearly 12,000 option contracts as stock falls 1.76 to 32.31.
Pharmaceutical HOLDRS (NYSE: PPH) has option volume of more than 2100 as it falls .20 to 20.77.
The ProShares UltraShort FTSE China 25 (NYSE: FXP) trades about 11,000 options as it rises .87 to 26.17.
Total Volume Leaders
SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) trades 1.6 million options as it falls 2.19 to 132.71. The S&P 500 Index Options (CBOE: SPX) trades more than 381,000 option contracts and falls 22.17 to 1323.03.
The iShares Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) trades 322,629 contracts and falls 1.86 to 82.98.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) trades more than 253,000 options and is a rare riser today, up .11 to 347.94.
Nokia falls .34 to 6.69 and traded 216,000 options.
The CBOE Volatility Index (CBOE: VIX) sees more than 170,000 options trade as it rises 1.88 to 17.33.
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is down .41 to 11.33 and 137,000 options trade on the big bank.
Burney Simpson is the managing editor of InvestorPlace options pages.
