Market-wide options volume by session, with monthly expirations labelled
Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-25, from Unusual Options Activity: Last Session.
| session | contracts_m | session_type | monthly_expiry_m | session_id |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 16 | 70.7 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260716 |
| Jul 17 | 76.8 | monthly expiration | 76.8 | 20260717 |
| Jul 20 | 63.5 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260720 |
| Jul 21 | 56.8 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260721 |
| Jul 22 | 55.4 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260722 |
| Jul 23 | 65.4 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260723 |
| Jul 24 | 70.7 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260724 |
| Jul 27 | 64.3 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260727 |
| Jul 28 | 58.7 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260728 |
| Jul 29 | 66.3 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260729 |
| Jul 30 | 66.3 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260730 |
| Jul 31 | 75.5 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260731 |
| Aug 3 | 72.7 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260803 |
| Aug 4 | 78.9 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260804 |
| Aug 5 | 69.5 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260805 |
| Aug 6 | 63.2 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260806 |
| Aug 7 | 73.2 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260807 |
| Aug 10 | 61.4 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260810 |
| Aug 11 | 54.6 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260811 |
| Aug 12 | 55.4 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260812 |
| Aug 13 | 66.6 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260813 |
| Aug 14 | 66 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260814 |
| Aug 17 | 60.9 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260817 |
| Aug 18 | 56.9 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260818 |
| Aug 19 | 67.2 | ordinary | 76.8 | 20260819 |
- Rows × columns
- 25 × 5
- Period covered
- to
- Computed
- Completeness
- No missing values
- Source
- US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
- Licence
- Strasmore terms · free, no signup
What each column holds
| Column | Type | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
session |
date | Aug 10 to Jul 31 | |
contracts_m |
number | 54.6 to 78.9 | count |
session_type |
text | 2 distinct values (monthly expiration, ordinary) | |
monthly_expiry_m |
number | every row is 76.8 | |
session_id |
number | 20,260,716 to 20,260,819 |
Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.
the exact SQL behind every number
WITH tape AS (
SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
sum(toFloat64(volume)) AS vol
FROM global_markets.options_minute_aggs
WHERE window_start >= toDateTime(today() - 45, 'America/New_York')
GROUP BY d
),
ranked AS (
SELECT d, vol, row_number() OVER (ORDER BY d DESC) AS raw_rn
FROM tape
),
cal AS (
SELECT d, vol, rn, sum(if(rn BETWEEN 2 AND 21, 1, 0)) OVER () AS baseline_sessions
FROM (
SELECT d, vol, row_number() OVER (ORDER BY d DESC) AS rn
FROM ranked
WHERE vol >= 0.75 * (SELECT quantileExact(0.5)(vol) FROM ranked WHERE raw_rn > 1)
)
),
w AS (
SELECT d, vol,
toStartOfMonth(d) + toIntervalDay(((5 - toDayOfWeek(toStartOfMonth(d)) + 7) % 7) + 14) AS third_friday
FROM cal
WHERE rn <= 25
),
marked AS (
SELECT d, vol,
(d = max(if(d <= third_friday, d, toDate('1970-01-01'))) OVER (PARTITION BY toStartOfMonth(d)))
AND (third_friday <= max(d) OVER ()) AS is_expiry
FROM w
),
latest AS (
SELECT d, vol, is_expiry,
max(if(is_expiry, d, toDate('1970-01-01'))) OVER () AS last_expiry_d
FROM marked
)
SELECT formatDateTime(d, '%b %e') AS session,
round(vol / 1e6, 1) AS contracts_m,
multiIf(is_expiry, 'monthly expiration', 'ordinary') AS session_type,
round(max(if(d = last_expiry_d, vol, 0)) OVER () / 1e6, 1) AS monthly_expiry_m,
toYYYYMMDD(d) AS session_id
FROM latest
ORDER BY d ASC
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