When is expiration ? My weekly is called "RUT Apr26'12 830 CALL @CBOE" That is a thursday !!! I found this article: www.forbes.com/feeds/options/2007/06/01/options17391.html It is 5 years old. Is it still valid ? RUT = 809.82 and RLS = 792.68 now.
Why does it stop trading on thursday. And at what time ? 15:00, or 15:15 Chicago timezone ? I can trade AEX weeklies on the Fridays until expiration. When is the margin gone?
Why? Don't know, but that's the way TPTB decided. Weekly DJX, NDX indexes also AM-settled (like monthly). CBOE's SPX weekly is PM, and OEX/XEO settle PM (weekly & monthly). RUT options trade until 15:15 central. But you should looking into this yourself and not trust me!
The RUT can move up to 8 points or more overnight Thursday. Even though the Rut will give an open price in the morning and move around some, they don't compute the settlement price until all 2000 stocks have made a trade that morning. Some of the illiquid stocks can push the time for settlement to after lunch to sometime in the afternoon. I've seen the settlement price vary by 4 points or more from the Friday morning open price because of the slow trading stocks. I've traded the Rut with OE and TOS and neither of them have released my margin/buying power in time to trade it on Friday. Now you know why I got out of the Rut. Now I'm in a different rut, the spx.
I traded some flies in NDX a while back... Gave me the shits for a mere 10 points... Amateurish move marred by greed. Same thing, I was worried about a gap up the next day. Stay away from RUT, et al especially with credit spreads and or low R/R trades.. they're bad trades and will catch up with you... SPX is far better with same day settlement!