Options Symbol Info

Slave2Market · Mar 18, 2008

I use Interactive Brokers to trade options. Does anyone know where I can find detailed info on the various options contracts types?

For example: I would like contract info on the March 2008 IWM 60 Put i.e. the DIW versus IQX Class options. The IQX is priced significantly higher than the DIW and want to make sure that I understand why. I assume it's American versus European exercise, but would like to confirm.

I've scoured the CBOE web-site and couldn't find any info and surprisingly IB Help didn't know.

Thanks for any help.

Slave2Market

MTE · Mar 18, 2008

Actually, no, it's not American vs European. All options on ETFs are American. The difference is that DIW is the normal Mar contract that expires this week, the IQX is the quarterly contract that expires at the end of the month.

Slave2Market · Mar 18, 2008

Thanks for the info! I've probably spent 2 hours searching for this info on the web and waited about 30 minutes for IB online help and still couldn't get an answer.

For anyone else reading this, here's a link to the ISE web-site explaining the product:

http://www.ise.com/WebForm/options_...goryId=100&header0=true&menu2=true&link3=true

Thanks again.

MTE · Mar 18, 2008

In Thinkorswim all you have to do is bring up the option chains and you can see straight away what that option represents - i.e. is it a standard one or adjusted for splits/mergers, weekly, quarterly and etc.

teun · Mar 18, 2008

Quote from MTE:
In Thinkorswim all you have to do is bring up the option chains and you can see straight away what that option represents - i.e. is it a standard one or adjusted for splits/mergers, weekly, quarterly and etc.

Do you have also full access to historical option data when using ToS?

MTE · Mar 19, 2008

Quote from teun:

Do you have also full access to historical option data when using ToS?

With the new backtesting feature I think yes, but I haven't taken a detailed look at it yet. You can also chart option prices.