I know this is stupid, trading something without knowing all of the facts, but I am holding onto some Oct. 16 ES 1100 Call options. I have traded these options in the past and in August the instrument did not trade on Friday expiration date. In September I was holding some call options and exited on Thursday because I thought trading would end on Thursday again. In Sept. the options traded trhoughout Friday. Can anybody explain what's going on.
cash index futures options expire thursday or i believe at the open print on friday morning... or the stop trading thursday and the final price is based on the friday open print. either way they dont trade on the last friday.
Appreciate the info. I guess I didn't see the Sept. option trading on Friday. I thought there might be a difference depending on whether the option expired on the normal expiration date, 3rd Friday and options that expire on one of the other days, like the last day of the month expiration dates.
Then I guess there was trading on Friday Aug. 21 and I didn't recognize it. It is possible that the Aug. options were too far out of the money: I don't recall. I do know in Sept., when I saw trading in the option on Friday they were in the money. So I'm still kind of confused as I got feedback from two people and each one verifies something that I had seen in two different months. I'll keep a sharp eye on Friday action to see what happens. I have a GTC order to sell the calls at 7.00 and hopefully that will happen tonight or early tomorrow. I think we'll exceed 1100 fairly strong at some time on or before Friday but I think I'll pocket the quick profit this time. Thanks again for the feedback.
Standard futures options expire into futures just like an equity option expires into the underlying, same ramifications. Except during the quarterlies. On the quarterlies, the futures options expire like a cash settled index. This is probably your confusion. So the quarterlies-March, June, Sep, and Dec expire into cash on the morning print of expiration friday-they do not trade on exp friday. Basically The ES an the SPX are the same contract (save multiplier size). The serials jan, feb, apr, may, jul, aug, oct, and nov expire into the futures contract. Thus they trade on expiration friday and are different. So this month, you have until friday night. http://www.option911.com
Thanks Option911, that explaination explains exactly what I saw in Aug and Sept. I've added your website as a link and look forward to reading your posts.
Speaking of futures options (ES in particular) are they any sources of good information other than the CME on why one would use them, how they act compared to SPX options, and so forth? I've been looking for stuff on "futures options" but unfortunately almost every hit on that phrase or something similar brings me to brokers who specialise in "futures, options, forex, etc" Just curious about why one would use ES options versus SPX options and to see how they compare to other trading vehicles.