markets may be wild today: 'quadruple witching' 4 types of options expire, $7.1 trillion in notional value, largest ever

in a single day


Friday could be a wild day of trading on Wall Street. Here’s why

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/18/friday-could-be-a-wild-day-of-trading-on-wall-street-heres-why.html

Wall Street could be in for a volatile end to the week as traders brace for what Goldman Sachs says will be the largest options expiration on record. Options expiration days are a monthly occurrence on Wall Street when the contracts on short-term derivatives expire. Friday happens to be one of the rare times (four times a year) when options on four types of securities expire on the same day: index options, single stock options, index futures and index futures options. This is called a “quadruple witching” day.

More than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure is set to expire this Friday, according to Goldman, including roughly $5 trillion tied to the S&P 500 index and $880 billion linked to single stocks. December options expirations are typically the biggest of the year, but this one eclipses all prior records, the firm said.

To put the scale into context, the options expiring Friday represent notional exposure equal to about 10.2% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000, Goldman said. That dynamic could lead to choppy trading, particularly around heavily watched levels in the S&P 500, according to Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial.

“I am expecting volumes to be well above normal as options traders finalize 2025 profits and losses,” Kilburg said. “But a lot of the repositioning seems to have already taken place. 6800 is a big strike price in the S&P and we will see if the bulls can defend that level after pushing the market back above it this morning.”

snip