Cboe to Further Expand S&P 500 Index Options Suite

September 19, 2022 - Cboe Global Markets, a provider of global market infrastructure and tradable products, announced the continued expansion of its S&P 500 Index® (SPX) options suite with additional expirations for SPX WeeklysSM Tuesday and Thursday options, beginning September 19 and September 28, respectively.

Total volume in SPX Tuesday and Thursday options have surpassed 44 million contracts since their launch in second-quarter 2022. The additional expirations for SPX Tuesday and Thursday options will align with the number of expirations currently available for SPX Monday and Wednesday options.

In addition, Cboe will introduce new Tuesday and Thursday-expiring Mini-S&P 500® Index (XSP) options beginning October 3 and October 12, respectively. With these changes, both SPX and XSP options will offer expirations every day, going out at least four weeks, enabling traders to express their views with even greater precision.

"Cboe's proprietary Weeklys contracts are one of our fastest growing products and with these new listings, we are continuing to build out our world-class S&P 500 options franchise to bring even more product choice and versatility to suit our global customers' diverse trading needs," said Arianne Adams, Senior Vice President and Head of Derivatives and Global Client Services at Cboe Global Markets. "As ultra-short-dated SPX options trading activity hit record levels, these new expirations meet strong retail and institutional client demand for cash-settled options to spread risk across more trading days and manage intraday volatility in the markets with even greater agility and efficiency."

At 1/10th the size of a standard SPX options contract, XSP options provide a more manageably sized contract and greater flexibility for new index options traders or traders looking to manage their notional exposure with greater precision. Like SPX options, XSP options offer the potential opportunity to manage large-cap U.S. equity exposure including, but not limited to, the execution of overall risk management and income generation strategies.

SPX and XSP options also offer potentially favorable tax treatment, European-style exercise (no early exercise) and cash settlement (no delivery or assignment of shares) at expiration.

SPX options are one of the most actively traded and liquid index options contracts in the world. Trading volumes have grown, as a new monthly record of 51.4 million contracts traded was set in August, up 82 percent from August 2021, with average daily volume (ADV) of 2.2 million contracts. Similarly, XSP options continued to gain steady adoption. Approximately 657,000 XSP options contracts were traded in August, up 115 percent from a year ago, with ADV of nearly 29,000 contracts.