`All Hands on Deck' ``We're going to have all hands on deck''...

`All Hands on Deck'

``We're going to have all hands on deck'' for today's trading, said Joseph Cusick, senior market analyst at OptionsXpress Holdings Inc., a Chicago-based online brokerage. ``There's a possibility it could be explosive, but it should be relatively orderly.''

Last week, the number of options traded in 2008 surpassed the full-year record of 2.86 billion contracts set last year, according to the OCC. U.S. trading of exchange-listed options began in 1973 at the CBOE.

October options on the S&P 500 and other stock indexes finished trading yesterday. The settlement price for those contracts will be determined by today's first trade. For S&P 500 options, which are the most actively traded U.S. contracts, about 24 percent of the total open interest of 17.6 million expires today, according to the CBOE.

Contracts on stocks and ETFs continue trading through today's close.

``We're going to be in for a wild ride,'' said Michael Nasto, the senior trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc., which manages $6 billion in San Antonio. ``It's going to be like going to Coney Island.''

Where is Coney Island ???