Hey all.... I really dont quite understand the ECBOT futures market, i read their whole website and its still unclear to me.... my broker is also pretty unhelpful it seems If anyone could help me understand the following, I would really appreciate it! I bought a PUT SEPT 06 ZG gold future option, strike 630, at 13.70 this morning..... 1) when is the LAST day I can actually trade this option and how do I see what day that is - is there a website with calendar?? or you all just work that out manually? 2) if the option expires worthless (out of the money) I assume I dont have to close it, I can just let it expire worthless and then the option will just fall away off my account with interactive brokers? Neither interactive brokers nor ECBOT will open any sort of position or rollover type contract for me, correct? 3) if the option is going to expire in the money, what happens if I dont close it before the last trading day and it actually expires in the money? Interactive brokers dont allow physical delivery of the gold (which I dont want) so I am wondering what happens? lets say on expiry date (which I assume is sept 6th) lets say gold closes at 608, what happens then? thanks
Looks like option expiration is Aug 28th. You should see that date specified on your equity statement where it shows the position. You'd have up until that day to offset it. If the option expires out of the money, and you you haven't offset it, it would expire worthless and you'd have no position. If it expires in the money, I'm pretty sure IB would automatically exercise the option and you'd go short the Sep futures contract at 630.0. IB should be able to verify their procedure on that but that's how it works with our clearing firms. If you take the futures position you'd have until the Last Trading Day (Sept 27th) to offset the futures by buying back the futures contract. I'm not sure that I've answered all of your questions, but I hope this helps.
I think sep options expires into oct futures (either way, not the liquid dec contract). Good luck with getting out the oct futures if it expired in the money.
hmm i guess you are saying some months are more liquid than others? are the liquid months then the "non serial options" months, February, April, June, August, October and December ?
thanks for the reply.... Are you saying that even though the contract says sept 6th on it, it really expires at sometime on Aug 28th, and that is the date at which the option would be converted to a futures if its in the money and I never closed it? I assume you mean the last day to trade that position and close it is AUG 28th, ie that aug 28th is a tradeable day? thx
Check the OI and volume, u will know what i mean. I think the above are right except Oct. Right now, i am trading the dec contract outright
'Sep 06' stands for September 2006. The only way to know what the Last Trading Day is would be to verify on an expiration calendar (or it should be on your statement also). http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/cont_detail/0,3206,1014+36080,00.html You should be able to close out the option actually on the LTD. Keep in mind if it's Aug 28th and there's no chance of the option expiring in the money there probably won't be any buyers to take the option off your hands.
err wow volume and OI on these gold futures is like almost non existent who is spending all day moving the bids and asks and not actually trading anything?? computers?
but then I shouldn't have to worry about anything other than the fact that it just expired worthless and I lost money, correct? there is no chance of my broker rolling it into something else if the option expires worthless? thx