Options on the ES

Discussion in 'Index Futures' started by billsafari, Aug 28, 2011.

  1. Well, after searching many sites I am having difficulty finding quotes just to get a guage on their price.

    I was on CME and CBOT and they show the contract specs but I want to see how much a weekly or front month option would cost ( a ballpark range)

    So for ex. Lets say ES is at 1176. I want to find the price of a weekly or front month 1200 call and 1150 put.

    I want to see if it is feasible for a hedge( and/or strangle) and I would trade around it with the ES and maybe leg into it at some point if I only had a call or put. In addition, with the volatility lately I would feel better knowing I was protected from any monster moves.

    I appreciate it. Thanks

    Please share your experiences with the futures options. How liquid are they and what kind of daily volume are they getting? How are they priced?

    Thanks again.
     
  2. CrackPipe

    CrackPipe Guest

  3. I was more or less just looking for an example. If a front month futures options on ES 25-30 points out of the money(say 20 days to exp) is going to cost me 3 or 4k then it most likey will not be worth it. If its 300 to 700 then maybe.

    Is the price of the option x100 or is the multiplier incorporarted in the price?


    I am just looking for the cheapest partial hedge(or strangle) to trade the ES around. Whether its futures options or options or whatever. Lately with the volatility on the market I just want to avoid a potential blowout.

    I guess I could just use the SPY options. However I will always be a student of the industry and would like to add futures options ( at least be knowledgable about them) to my arsenal.
     
  4. MTE

    MTE

    You can see the options here. It doesn't give the bid and ask, but it's something.

    The underlying for the option contract is 1 futures contract so the multiplier is 50 and not 100.
     
  5. to the OP, it depends how you want to hedge since you mentioned using futs as well. i prefer options due to the asymmetric risk/reward. ES has less liquidity, wider spreads vs spy but you can trade round the clock. you could trade spx options and save money on commish b/c the car size is 10x that of spy but they're pit traded although they should move to the new c2 exchange if the regs ever get their act together and approve it. for now i'd just say hedge w/ spy puts.
     
  6. rew

    rew

    Well on IB you can bring up the option chain just like you can for any other asset that has options. The pricing looks comparable to the SPX options. IB does not show open interest for these options so I can't say how liquidity compares to SPX or SPY options. I can say that the bid and ask quantities for ES options tend to be at least as big as the corresponding SPX options so the ES options seem to be trading in decent size.