Thanks guys. He went ahead and did the spread. Has to find out for himself I guess. And no, its not one of those situations where "my friend" is actually me haha.
For a snapshot of what you are looking at you can just go to Yahoo Finance page. They have the list for option for the stocks. Most eqiuties expire on the 3rd Saturday of the month. That means the last trading day would be the 3rd Friday close. Index options (SPX, NDX and so on) would expire on Fridays open. Thursday close would be the last tradeing allowed. Do some studing on how to trade options before you start trading, unless you like to give away your money...
I'm all set with trading options, I was asking the original poster for the numbers he and his friend used so I could help explain why the trade he is putting on won't turn a profit. The only way I can see it possibly working is if the stock drops and the NOV call ends up losing more time value than the DEC and he closes them out for a profit. If they are deep in the money,and the NOV gets excercised, he will lose.
this does not sound right, 10 vs 10.5 for nov/dec? How ditm are we talking about, what is the underlying trading at? Also you said your friend went ahead and did it anyway. What's his actual fill price on the nov/dec calls? are they really 10 and 10.5?