Cash settled options on US equities

A

Aquarians

Currently options on US equities have physical delivery. Wonder if any of you would be (more) interested in trading them if they were cash settled. Or they're right just the way they are.

A problem I see us that if you're not paying attention, you can lose more than the premium you pay for an option. Say you buy a put option, it expires in the money so you're short stock, then next day the stock opens at 10x the close price. You have to buy the stock on the expiry day to prevent that.
 
Cash-settled would be too easy to manipulate. Big players could run the stock way up or down right at expiry to collect on their options.
 
it's been discussed and proposed for years. Members of the OCC board have veto power and CBOE always shuts the discussion down. The fear is it becomes the cash settled SPY and there goes the market in the SPX. It would, IMHO, result in a huge spike in volume, but murder SPX volume. It's all about vexchange politics and revenue
 
SEC has historically refused to allow for cash settled derivatives. There have been some rule filings by exchanges that have been subsequently pulled. They fear a manipulator entering into the public auction markets and moving options into and out of the money.
 
ajacobson said:
Has an exchange made an SEC filing and had it rejected? It never gets past the OCC board.
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There have been two requests. Neither has made it past presubmission discussions with SEC staff. CBOE pulled a request without comment a few years ago. OneChicago is pressing forward but we are facing very stiff resistance. It is not an OCC issue.
 
We took it to OCC five times when I was at ISE and it died at the board level. SEC didn't want maker/taker and we live with that. If CBOE wanted them we'd have them, but it would be at the expense of the SPX monopoly.
 
Sig said:
Why, the manipulation potential?
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Yup,as well as simple hassle of getting out of delta at expiration. In the OTC world, MM would still insist on physical settle or on some sort averaging.
 
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