Deep out of the money options pricing

[Robert Morse]

ETF options or equity options
Trading directly through brokerage site- TDA

I should clarify that, when I enter the buy order for $0.10, the listed ask of $0.10 will disappear and be replaced by another higher priced ask, $0.20. And if I were to submit a buy order for the $0.20 deep deep out of the money option, the $0.20 ask will disappear to be replaced by an ask of $0.30, and so on.

When this happens in the future, you should open a CHAT with trade support and ask them to look into it. No broker will guarantee you a fill. I don't know what went wrong, but in my experience, I have never seen a MM have the ability to move out of the way when an order comes in,if they are offering at that time, you should get something. The only scenario I can possibly thin of, is that your order was not sent to the exchange where the offer was, then your order was rerouted and missed it. Just a guess, but I have no idea. You need to ask them when it happens, not days later.

 

[Jones75]

Options pricing tables will routinely show deep, deep out of the money options priced at $0.05 or $0.10 ask, yet when orders are submitted at those prices, the listed $0.05 or $0.10 ask prices disappear and the order goes unfilled. Orders for those same deep out of the money options typically don't get filled until my submitted bid prices are much closer to ~$0.40.

Are those rock bottom deep out of the money options with $0.05 ask prices just not at all realistically available for purchase?

Why are those rock bottom ask prices even listed if there is no intention at all of filling at those prices?

I've seen this with RBC in Canada.

Just ignore it, find something else to trade. Complaining will bring on too much paperwork.

 

[Occam]

is it possible to investigate past shifting/ disappearing ask orders even when no trade occurred?

Yes it is.

Post the full options symbol, the exact times (to the second), and your order details (price and size); and then it will be possible (for one of us who records the OPRA feed) to track down the point at which this occurred. FYI, you can get this information from Ameritrade going back up to 60 days by going to "Trading" => "Order Status" and then setting the time appropriately.

 

[stepandfetchit]

When this happens in the future, you should open a CHAT with trade support and ask them to look into it. No broker will guarantee you a fill. I don't know what went wrong, but in my experience, I have never seen a MM have the ability to move out of the way when an order comes in,if they are offering at that time, you should get something. The only scenario I can possibly thin of, is that your order was not sent to the exchange where the offer was, then your order was rerouted and missed it. Just a guess, but I have no idea. You need to ask them when it happens, not days later.

Very good advice.
TOS has the Live Support chat at your fingertips:

I use it about once a week for TOS "undocumented" feature resolution.

 

[FSU]

If you hit/take the price the option is bid or offered at you will be filled, with very few exceptions, none of which I think would apply to a TOS customer order.

These exceptions would include, you have sent an order to a specific exchange and marked the order not to be routed to another exchange and the offer you were trying to take was on another exchange.

Your order is marked as a broker/dealer order. Market Makers on some exchanges are allowed to mark who their order interacts with.

You order is for a monthly SPX option and the bid/offer is held by a broker. You would have no way of knowing this and would not receive an instant fill.

Unusual circumstances were linkage with other exchanges are down.

I cant think of any other reasons why you wouldn't be filled if your order is actually transmitted to an exchange.

 

[JackRab]

Sounds like OP is paper trading? What underlying stock are we talking about? If an option changes from 5cnt to 40cnt, I would take the guess you're looking at a very illiquid stock/options?

More details please...

 

[ironchef]

ETF options or equity options
Trading directly through brokerage site- TDA

I should clarify that, when I enter the buy order for $0.10, the listed ask of $0.10 will disappear and be replaced by another higher priced ask, $0.20. And if I were to submit a buy order for the $0.20 deep deep out of the money option, the $0.20 ask will disappear to be replaced by an ask of $0.30, and so on.

You should look at the ask size. If the size is say 10 and your bid size is 100, the ask will move on you. Happened to me too. If I matched my size to < = ask size I always got my bid filled.

 

[JackRab]

You should look at the ask size. If the size is say 10 and your bid size is 100, the ask will move on you. Happened to me too. If I matched my size to < = ask size I always got my bid filled.

Well you should at least get filled for 10 lots at the ask price when you submit your order... so there's something strange happening with OP's system...

 

[ironchef]

Well you should at least get filled for 10 lots at the ask price when you submit your order... so there's something strange happening with OP's system...

Come to think of it, you are right. Looking at my records, that was what happened: Partially filled. My bad.

Maybe he was trading against his brokerage house instead of with the market?

Regards,

 

[JackRab]

Come to think of it, you are right. Looking at my records, that was what happened: Partially filled. My bad.

Maybe he was trading against his brokerage house instead of with the market?

Regards,

It's always annoying when they want help, but provide no details whatsoever... as if we here on ET are going to front-run some newbie in a shitty stock/option that he thinks will go through the roof...

I think OP is paper trading or not willing to pay for a real-time data feed.