Traders worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on December 17, 2025, as Wall Street prepared for a potentially volatile close to the week amidst a record-breaking options expiration.
This Friday is set to bring the largest options expiration on record, as noted by Goldman Sachs. Options expiration days occur monthly, but this one coincides with a 'quadruple witching' day—one of the four days a year when options on four different types of securities, including index options, single stock options, index futures, and index futures options, expire simultaneously.
According to Goldman, more than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure is poised to expire this Friday. This includes about $5 trillion linked to the S&P 500 index and approximately $880 billion connected to single stocks. December options expirations are usually the largest annually, but this current expiration exceeds all previous records.
Goldman contextualizes the scale, noting that the expiring options represent notional exposure equivalent to roughly 10.2% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000.
This significant event could result in erratic trading, particularly around critical levels of the S&P 500, according to Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial. Kilburg stated, "I am expecting volumes to be well above normal as options traders finalize 2025 profits and losses. However, much of the repositioning seems to have already happened. 6800 is a significant strike price in the S&P, and we will see if the bulls can hold that level after pushing the market back above it this morning."
As of now, the S&P 500 has seen an approximately 15% increase this year, with Thursday's trading around the 6,770 mark.