Options Market Year in Review
Flood of Liquidity and Strong Market Quality Multi-list options broke nearly all volume records in 2021, driven by the growth of retail participation: daily records (24 of the top 25 volume days of all-time came in 2021), monthly ADV records (April was the only month from 2021 not in the top 12 all-time), and yearly ADV records (37.3M ADV in 2021 was nearly 10M more than in 2020 and double the ADV in 2019). Electronic trading products, the preferred method for retail trading, grew as a proportion of industry volume since Q1 2020, and the average trade size remained lower than in Q1 2020. This increased market participation contributed to a net improvement in market quality relative to pre-pandemic trading conditions.
