It appears that SPXPM is only showing 10 point increment strikes for everything except 25 and 75, i.e. they have 2100, 2110, and 2120 but not 2105, 2115.... They do have 2125 and 2175, for at least the next two months. (http://www.cboe.com/delayedquote/quotetable.aspx?ticker=SPXPM) Anyone know why they would be configured this way, they always listed 5 point increments before, at least within reasonable distance of the current spot. I asked my broker who called the CBOE and as of now, 2 hours later, he's still awaiting a call back. Just wanted to see if I missed a change they may have made or if anyone has any other insights?
Are you sure they were there before? When products are not liquid and this is certainly one, you want to have fewer strikes to concentrate liquidity. The reason the 1/4's have strikes is because historically that is where the liquidity is. To be honest, I don't know why they even list 10 point strikes. Usually the goal is to build up volume in the 1/4's and then over time to introduce narrower strikes.
I went and looked at last month's trade confirms and I traded a bunch of '5 SPXPM, specifically 2065, 2095, 2105, and 2115. SPXPM is a pretty liquid contract, it's the Friday weekly on the third Friday (week of the AM settled SPX options), and in my past experience it's had just as much liquidity as the regular weekly PM expiration Friday options that cover every other Friday of the month (SPXWs). Heck, even the Monday and Wednesday weeklies have 5 point strike increments and they're brand new. Which brings up the question, why can't they just offer the SPXW every Friday of the month instead of this SPXPM the third Friday nonsense? I'm sure there's a good reason, just curious what it is.
Are we looking at the same thing? I've attached the open interest for both and the SPX looks to be about 10 times as liquid. This is for this week's expiry.
I'm comparing the SPXPM to SPXW, since they're essentially identical products. Both are Friday PM expiration, the SPXW is every Friday but the third Friday and SPXPM is the third Friday. SPX is obviously a different beast, AM expiration and only monthly. Obviously the fact that SPX expires the third Friday could take some liquidity away from SPXPM versus all the other SPXW Friday's, but they're really such different products with the AM vs PM expiration that I would think almost anyone who was holding SPX to expiration would not be substituting it for SPXPM and vice versa.