Prediction: U.S. Options Volume Will Set a Record for the Seventh Straight Year

U.S. options are on track for a seventh straight record year, with Cboe reporting record Q2 2026 net revenue of $732M (+25% y/y) and adjusted EPS of $3.60 (+45% y/y), driven by derivatives net revenue of $413M (+30% y/y). Index options average daily volume rose 32% to 6.2M contracts (and nearly 71M avg daily contracts in 2Q26), while Nasdaq posted $1.5B net revenue (+15% y/y) with record U.S. equity options volumes. Both exchanges are expanding derivatives and trading hours (e.g., Cboe Predicts and 23/5-style sessions), setting up continued upside if options volumes keep accelerating.

Analysis

The real earnings lever here is not headline volume growth; it is the persistence of high-optionality participation across both institutional hedging and retail speculation. That supports fee-bearing contract counts, market-data monetization, and cross-sell into newer products, with CBOE carrying the cleaner near-term torque because a larger share of its revenue is tied directly to derivatives mix. NDAQ’s upside is more incremental and execution-dependent: longer trading hours and event-linked products can add access/market-services revenue, but the market may be overestimating how much of that is net-new flow versus time-shifted activity.

Second-order effects matter more than the press-release narrative. If 23/5 trading actually sticks, it raises the value of overnight liquidity provision and should pull in overseas flow, but it also intensifies competition for spread capture and could pressure per-contract economics if multiple venues race to rebate volume. For CBOE, prediction-market/KPI-style contracts are a longer-dated option on regulatory approval; if approved, they widen the product set, but the path is binary and likely months to years, not a near-term P&L driver.

The contrarian risk is that consensus is treating record volumes as linear rather than mean-reverting. A few months of lower realized volatility, a fade in retail engagement, or a regulatory delay on new products could compress the multiple on both names quickly, especially after a strong year-to-date run. Falsifier for the bull case: options ADV stalls below current run-rate for a full quarter, or new-hours launches fail to show measurable incremental ADV rather than just shifted tape.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long CBOE on pullbacks; prefer a 1-3 month hold into the next options-volume print. Risk/reward is best if index-options ADV stays elevated and the market starts to price in sustained mix improvement rather than one-quarter noise.
• Relative value: long CBOE / short NDAQ for a cleaner derivatives-beta expression over 1-3 months. Thesis fails if NDAQ’s 23/5 rollout shows faster-than-expected incremental monetization and CBOE’s volume growth normalizes.
• If seeking lower-conviction exposure, wait for a volatility reset before adding NDAQ; the longer-hours catalyst is real but likely underwrites over 6-18 months, not immediately. Best entry is on any post-launch disappointment or broad market de-risking.
• Buy short-dated CBOE call spreads into the next volume/margin update only if implied vol is not already rich; this is a tactical upside capture on continued ADV momentum with defined downside.
• Watch for a breakdown in index-options growth or a sharp drop in realized vol as the key exit signal; that would argue for trimming both names because the narrative is volume-scaling, not structural monopoly re-rating.