I want to buy a call option on a 5000 troy ounce silver futures contract with strike price $50 expiring in December 2017. CME lists this option as available. You can find it by clicking the following link, setting "Strike Range" to "All", and scrolling down to 5000.0 cents. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/met...tCd=SIZ7&expMonth=201712&prodid=#prodType=AME So, CME has this option but I can't find it anywhere in Interactive Brokers. Does your broker have it?
How are you trying to find it on TWS? I found it in less than 30 seconds. No bid/offer and close of 0.341.
There ain't no open interest on them silver options that far out... If I had to guess, that's probably why your broker doesn't offer it.
Calculate a value, put in a limit order and then go read a book. There's virtually no activity in silver futures or options beyond the front two contract months (and it's almost all in the first).
I would buy the SLV Jan 15, 2016 40.00 Calls at $0.34. Then roll into the 50.00 calls when/if they become available. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SLV160115C00040000
I searched for "silver" and in the search window filtered for "Futures Options". The only thing that looks related is an instrument with symbol ZI: "CBOT 5000 OZ SILVER FUTURES (NYSELIFFE)" But I see no option extending to December 2017. The longest option I can see has expiry in November 23, 2016. That's a year too early. How did you find the option?
Not good. You want to trade silver options and you don't even know that the COMEX symbol for silver is "SI". Put in symbol as "SI", pick futures options, pick DEC and pick 2017. I think you would be better off with a DEC 2015 $30 strike call. Price is about 0.661 and open interest is 117.
Thank you, I see it now. I got confused because SI is labeled "NYMEX Silver Index" in TWS. You'll see this label if you double click on the option. Do you know more about this "index"? It is listed as the underlying of the futures contract underlying the option. I did not know the futures contract had any underlying other than the physical silver itself.
Questions of this type are easily answered on the CME site. Just look under products > metals > silver and you will find futures and options quotes, contract fact sheets, product brochures and the detailed rule book. SI is the futures product you're looking for. It gets a little confusing because of the exchange mergers over time. (I think the sequence below is correct). COMEX (the original home of that silver contract) was bought by NYMEX. NYMEX was bought by CME. The CME also bought/merged with the CBOT. At the time, the CBOT had one or more precious metals contracts. For regulatory reasons, the combined CBOT/CME entity may have had to sell the CBOT metals contracts. It looks like they were picked up by LIFFE/NYSE, and LIFFE/NYSE is now part of ICE. If you trade, you will be trading the COMEX (now CME) contract. This might seem useless knowledge, but depending on your broker and quote system, you may still see old exchange names that are under the umbrella of the CME or the ICE now. And as legal entities go, the exchanges might still exist; the last time I looked at a rulebook, it said NYMEX.
Thanks for the information FXforex. I looked at the entire chain for Jan 15 2016. I am liking the $29-$31 strikes. They are up today. I think I will wait until they pull back just a little and buy some. Cheers