On December 17, 2025, traders at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City are gearing up for a potentially turbulent end to the week. Goldman Sachs has highlighted that this Friday could see the largest options expiration ever recorded.
Options expiration occurs monthly on Wall Street, when short-term derivatives contracts come to an end. This Friday is particularly notable as it marks a 'quadruple witching' day, a rare event that happens just four times a year. On this day, options across four types of securities expire simultaneously: index options, single stock options, index futures, and index futures options.
Goldman Sachs reports that more than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure is set to expire, with approximately $5 trillion linked to the S&P 500 index and $880 billion to individual stocks. Not only are December options typically the largest annual expirations, but this cycle has surpassed all previous records.
To contextualize this magnitude, the expiring options represent notional exposure roughly equivalent to 10.2% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000, according to Goldman Sachs.
This situation may result in volatile trading, especially around key levels of the S&P 500, as noted by 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 commented. "However, much of the repositioning has likely already occurred. The 6800 strike price in the S&P is significant, and it will be interesting to see if the bulls can defend that level after bringing the market back above it this morning."
The S&P 500 has risen approximately 15% this year, currently trading around 6,770 as of Thursday.