How important are ETF options and index options to CBOEs business?
Moran: Of the 944.5 million contracts traded at CBOE in 2007, 53% were in equity options, 24% in the cash-settled indexes, and 23% in ETF options. Institutional investors often are most interested in those products with large notional values to manage the risk in their portfolios. The biggest contract by far in terms of notional value is the S&P 500 index options contract. Last year, the average daily volume on that was over $90 billion a day, which accounted for more than half of our volume. The S&P 500 contract is very important for those people managing the size or risk of their portfolios, and the contract has been growing at about 40% or 50% annually in recent years. Last year, volume in options on the S&P 500 at CBOE was up 52%. Among other CBOE index options contracts, VIX options volume was up 363% over last year, and the Russell 2000 grew by 277%. So a number of our products are experiencing very strong, record-setting growth. IU: What do people use ETF options for? Moran: It’
