Weekly, End-of-Month, Quarterly and Mini Options – eSignal Knowledge Base

Weekly, End-of-Month, Quarterly and Mini Options

Weekly, End-of-Month and Quarterly options have become popular because they give options traders more choices in terms of expiration dates. They are similar to standard options with the exception of the expiration dates and last trade dates. Weekly and Quarterly options are available on both the CBOE and CME. End-of month options are available only on the CME.

Jumbo and Mini options are available only on the CBOE and have the same expiration dates and last trade dates as standard options but differ in the number of deliverable shares.

CBOE Options
CBOE's Weekly options are currently listed on Thursdays and expire the following Friday or Thursday if Friday is an exchange holiday. A weekly expiration is available for every Friday of the month except for the third Friday which is when the standard option or quarterly option contract expires and it becomes the weekly option for that week.

Weekly options share the same root symbols as the standard symbol. Simply enter the root symbol into the option chain window (i.e. $OEX, SPY, AAPL, etc.). These weekly options are available for both stocks and indices. Click here for a list of available symbols. Please note that you will need to subscribe to OPRA along with the appropriate equities exchange or indices service to access this data.

CBOE's Quarterly options are available on Indexes and ETFs (Exchanged Traded Funds). Currently, they are not available on stocks. Quarterly options expire on the last business day of each calendar quarter.

CBOE Weekly and Quarterly options will have a D and number at the end of the symbol which designates the day of expiration. In the example below, D1 represents March 1 expiration date which is the first Friday in March of 2013. D8 represents the weekly option for the 2nd week in March which expires Friday, the 8th. The third Friday is the 15th but since this is week when the Standard options expire, they do not have a D and number suffix, since the Standard option is in effect, that week's Weekly option. Since the last Friday in March of 2013 is an exchange holiday (Good Friday), the Weekly and Quarterly options expire on Thursday, which is the 28th and so they have the D28 suffix.

CBOE's Mini options are similar to the equity options except they represent 10 deliverable shares instead of 100 shares. The symbol format for these option will to add the number 7 to the stock symbol (O:AAPL7 13D475.00, for example).

Jumbo Options are a currently available for the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY). The Jumbo SPY Options are based on 1,000 shares of the SPDR S&P 500 compared to the standard contract which is based on 100 shares.

An example for the Jumbo SPY Option symbol format will be O:SPYJ 13J164.00. The "J" after the symbol SPY indicates the option is a Jumbo Option.

CBOE Options

CBOE's Weekly options are currently listed on Thursdays and expire the following Friday or Thursday if Friday is an exchange holiday. A weekly expiration is available for every Friday of the month except for the third Friday which is when the standard option or quarterly option contract expires and it becomes the weekly option for that week.

Weekly options share the same root symbols as the standard symbol. Simply enter the root symbol into the option chain window (i.e. $OEX, SPY, AAPL, etc.). These weekly options are available for both stocks and indices. Click here for a list of available symbols. Please note that you will need to subscribe to OPRA along with the appropriate equities exchange or indices service to access this data.

CBOE's Mini options are similar to the equity options except they represent 10 deliverable shares instead of 100 shares. The symbol format for these option will to add the number 7 to the stock symbol (O:AAPL7 13D475.00, for example).

Jumbo Options are a currently available for the S&P 500 tracking ETF (SPY). The Jumbo SPY Options are based on 1,000 shares of the SPDR S&P 500 compared to the standard contract which is based on 100 shares. An example for the Jumbo SPY Option symbol format will be O:SPYJ 13J164.00. The "J" after the symbol SPY indicates the option is a Jumbo Option.

CME Options

the cme offers weekly options on cme equity index futures. for the nasdaq and s&p 500 weeklys, a special root symbol must be entered into the option chain window.

a weekly expiration is available for every friday of the contract month except for the third friday, the expiration day of existing american-style quarterly and serial options. in months that have five fridays (october 2010, for example), a week 5 weekly expiration will be listed for trading.

nasdaq futures: dn1 #f, dn2 #f, dn4 #f, dn5 #f
nasdaq e-minis: qn1 #f, qn2 #f, qn4 #f, qn5 #f

s&p 500 futures: ev1 #f, ev2 #f, ev4 #f
s&p e-minis: ew1 #f, ew2 #f, ew4 #f

for information about weekly energy options symbols,

wti crude oil week 1 : lo1 #f
brent crude oil week 1: bw1 #f
natural gas (physical) week 1 : on1 #f

click here for more information about weekly energy options.

the cme group also offers end-of-month options based on the s&p 500 only. the symbols to use in the option chain window for the standard contract is ev #f and the symbol ew #f for e-mini s&p 500 contract. these options are european style and expire on the last business day of the month.

Short Dated Crop Options

The CME offers several Short Dated Crop Options which are listed on the exchange website:

https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/short-dated-new-crop-options.html

Click the Contract Specifications page of each contract to locate the root symbol which can be entered directly into the Option Chain window.

Examples:

CDF #F or CDF 1! for Short Dated Corn

OCD #F or OCD 1! for Short Dated Corn (Globex)

WDF #F or WDF 1! for Short Dated Wheat

OWD #F or OWD 1! for Short Dated Wheat (Globex)