For the first five months of the year, total options contract volume stood at 1.75 billion contracts, according to the Options Industry Council. That amount is largely unchanged from last year.
Equity options volume was down however, during the period, coming in at 1.588 billion contracts. In the first five months of 2012, that figure was 1.626 billion contracts.
Equity options includes options on both single stocks and exchange traded-funds. The balance is comprised of options on indices.
