The dog days of summer used to be synonymous with slow markets where traders and clerks could take time off or cut out early assured that there was not much activity to miss. And while not as laid back as Europe, where some industry personnel where know to take the entire month off, the month of August usually coincided with quiet range-bound markets.

Not this year as the subprime crisis coupled with other market fundamentals have produced volatile markets and numerous volume records. The Chicago Board Options Exchange reported that this August was the busiest month in its 34-year history with 105,551,741 million contracts traded; a 94% increase over last August and 21% increase over July’s record pace. It was the first time ever that CBOE traded more than 100 million contracts in a month. The entire equity options industry also set a record in August of 294,211,443 contracts, up 83% year on year.

The record volume was not contained to equity options as CME Group also reported record trading volume in interest rate and equity index products. Average daily volume at CME Group for August was 14.9 million, up 78% fro August 2006.