US Securities Volumes: 2025 Year-In-Review

Year in Review

• Retail activity and volatility drove volumes to record highs across the board.
  
• VIX average daily close climbed 21.47% to 18.96.
  
• Equity ADV increased 44.62% y/y to 17.58 billion.
  
• Equity ADVT increased 36.15% y/y to $824.27 billion.
  
• Off-exchange market share (+361 bps y/y) rose to 50.61%, accounting for the majority of trading for the first time.
  
• Exchange traded product volume increased 46.91% y/y to 3.44 billion.
  
• Equity option volume increased 25.78% y/y to 55.80 million.
  
• Index option volume increased 21.27% y/y to 5.03 million.

December

• Volumes fell in December, as the VIX average daily close dropped 21.88% m/m (-2.00% y/y), to 15.55.
  
• Equity (regular hours) ADV declined 15.51% m/m (+7.97% y/y) to 15.88 bn, while ADVT decreased 12.23% m/m (+27.12%) to $855.58 billion.
  
• The top 20 most-active equities accounted for 11.79% (-19 bps m/m) of consolidated volume and 15.29% (-39 bps bps m/m) of value traded, with 57.29% of volume off-board (+109 bps m/m). Three symbols alone — NVDA, TSLA and SPY — accounted for 12.76% of total value traded.
  
• Sub-dollar market share rose 110 bps m/m (-485 y/y), to 8.70%.
  
• Pre-market ADV of 0.95 billion and post-market ADV of 0.65 billion accounted for 9.14% (-12 bps m/m) of total volume when including the extended-hours sessions in the denominator. This includes overnight trading on ATSs, which currently gets reported with pre-market activity.
  
• NYSE (+86 bps m/m), and off-exchange (+63 bps m/m) gained the most market share; NYSE Arca (-49 bps m/m) lost the most. 24X increased its market share to 6 bps in its second full month of operations.
  
• 37.24% (+65 bps m/m) of off-board volume traded at the NBBO, compared with 19.05% (-38 bps m/m) at the midpoint.
  
• Intraday block market share rose 164 bps m/m to 5.84% of consolidated volume.
  
• Closing market share climbed 306 bps m/m, to 9.74% of total equity volume; 22.81% of closing volume occurred off-exchange, up 201 bps m/m.
  
• ETP ADV fell 15.66% m/m (+27.16% y/y), to 3.59 bn, comprising 22.64% of equity ADV (-4 bps m/m).
  
• Equity-options ADV dropped 13.57% m/m (+11.44% y/y) to 53.7 mn contracts.
  
• Nasdaq PHLX (+246 bps m/m) and BOX (+88 bps m/m) gained the most options market share. Nasdaq MRX (+19 bps m/m) reached an all-time high of 4.70%. Cboe BZX (-101 bps m/m), NYSE Arca (-86 bps m/m), Cboe (-78 bps m/m) and MEMX (-59 bps m/m) lost the most market share.
  
• Index-options ADV decreased 13.74% m/m (+25.95% y/y) to 5.14 mn contracts.

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