To answer this, we're going to run through some data on two of the market's most actively traded products: the S&P 500 ETF (SPY), and Apple Inc. (AAPL).First, we're going to compare the volume and open interest of SPY options at each strike price on a single trading day. The description of The simple SPY trading system to generate options signals based on index Breadth analysis via Advance Decline Sentiment (ADS) indicator..The Advance Decline Sentiment (ADS) system is based on the ADS indicator - The rule #2 is important. Let's start with SPY:Let's take a look at AAPL's options to see if the same trend exists:In the case of AAPL, the near-term expiration cycles have the highest amount of volume, but there is still a significant amount of open interest in the longer-term expiration cycles.
View the basic SPY option chain and compare options of SPDR S&P 500 on Yahoo Finance.

We used the expiration cycle with approximately 50 days to expiration.
What are ideal levels of volume and open interest? SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust historial options data by MarketWatch. To answer this, we're going to run through some data on two of the market's most actively traded products: the S&P 500 ETF (SPY), and Apple Inc. (AAPL). Cboe makes no guarantee as to the accuracy of the data. When looking to invest in the S&P 500, SPX and SPY options are similar assets with a high trading volume that investors can use to enter, and exit, a position in the S&P 500 index. The Option Volume Leaders page shows equity options with the highest daily volume, with options broken down between stocks and ETFs.. Volume is the total number of option contracts bought and sold for the day, for that particular strike price. In the next section, we'll go over which options on a stock tend to have the most of each.So, you know what option volume and open interest are, but which options tend to have the highest of each? Cboe Equity Option Volume is provided for informational purposes only. Failing to run a quick liquidity check can leave an options trader stranded in a position, forced to exit at an unfavorable price.Two metrics that every options trader should look at before entering a position are volume and open interest.The following chart shows the estimated total number of option contracts that were traded for various products in 2017:As we can see here, almost a billion option contracts were traded among the top four products, which indicates SPY, VIX, QQQ and IWM options are very actively traded. It's important to understand that one SPX option with the same strike price and expiration equals approximately 10 times the value of one SPY option. Then, we'll look at different expiration cycles.To analyze the volume and open interest based on the strike price, we chose a day from earlier this year and plotted the volume and open interest of calls and puts at each strike price. Lets take a look at 2 example which would explain it:On the chart below you may see an illustration of two signals examples.This is 100% mechanical trading system - signals are generated automatically without a human's involvement. PLEASE NOTE: 2006 and 2007 Equity Option Volume files are sorted by TOTAL AVERAGE DAILY VOLUME (ADV). The amount of options trading volume is a key consideration when deciding which avenue to go down in executing a trade.

When one party has an opening order and the other has a closing order, opening interest will not change (assuming both orders have the same number of contracts).An option's volume and open interest are very important to you as an options trader because you do not want to get caught trading illiquid options (low volume and low open interest). Only bullish signals ("Buy Calls") are generated by this system - for bearish signals different approach would be recommended. In 2004 the underlying notional value of trading in S&P options was more than $20 billion per day. View the basic SPY option chain and compare options of SPDR S&P 500 on Yahoo Finance. Volume: The total number of option contracts bought and sold for the day, for that particular strike price. SPY is a popular ETF and is consistently one of the highest-volume trading vehicles on U.S. exchanges.