The Chicago Board Options Exchange announced that it set three seat price records last Friday.

Three seats on the CBOE were bought on February 3, each at a new record high price. Seats were bought at US$890,000, US$900,000 and US$925,000, each beating the previous record high price of US$875,000, first set on December 20, 2005 and matched on January 5, with the first seat sale of 2006. Following the sale at US$925,000 on Friday, the market was US$920,000 bid and a seat was offered for sale at US$1,000,000.

“Friday’s record seat sales follow a record breaking January at CBOE, with trading volume for the month the busiest in the exchange’s history. January’s volume of 53.9 million contracts was an increase of 55% over January 2005, and surpassed the previous monthly record of 49.6 million contracts from October 2005,” it said. “Average daily volume of nearly 2.7 million contracts at CBOE during January was also a new all-time record. The CBOE Futures Exchange also set new records with volume in futures on the VIX of 21,502 and open interest of 19,476 at month’s end.”

CBOE announced in September 2005 that as of January 1 it would begin the process of converting CBOE to a for-profit stock corporation.