I never traded options on futures and the numbers are confusing to me... Can someone explain the math? How does 29.50 become 1475? Also, what is the warning about going below $0? How is that possible...
All options have a multiplier that tells you how many units of the underlying it’s based on. ES multiplier is 50x and $29.50 x 50 = 1475. Going below $0 is not possible for ES and your screenshot doesn’t say that it’s possible. It simply tells you that the calculations don’t include such scenario. Prices below $0 may be possible on other, commodity futures.
Thanks, one more question; are options of futures are the same American style as stock options? In the money what are the chances of assignment?
https://money.stackexchange.com/que...i-sp-500-at-the-cme-european-style-except-for “ The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has a variety of options on the E-mini S&P 500 (E1A,E2A,E3A,E4A,E5A,E1C,E2C,E3C,E4C,E5C,EW1,EW2,EW3,EW4,ES). All are European style, except for the quarterly option (ES), which is American style.” The chance of assignment on American style options should be no different than as for equity options, because it has to make the same sense for the option owner.
It does not seem to be any advantage trading options on ES over SPY other than the size of dollars for one contract and commission.
SPX options are better in terms of size, slippage, commissions, tax treatment, and trading hours. ES options have little longer trading hours than SPX and much longer than SPY, which can be useful.
It may not be an advantage over SPY, but ES is subject to SPAN margin, which can be a big advantage if you trade SPX (10x SPY). Say you wanted to leg into a spread that's far OTM (say 2300). For SPX, that'd take 230k unless you have portfolio margin (which you can't get in an IRA). The margin on ES would be a fraction of that, even though you need twice as many contracts. SPY/SPX seem give you more flexibility in the strikes/months available, though.