Weekly Options-Understanding?

[antares66]

Hello,
i understand well the concept of options on a regular basis.
I know weekly options are new listed every week on thursday and expire on friday the next week. So far. But i see a lot of weekly options for may or june which contain an open interest. I thought you can´t trade them yet. What am i missing?

 

[ZBZB]

They are the monthly options.

 

[guru]

Weekly options are listed several weeks before they expire, I think 6 weeks.
So this is incorrect: “weekly options are new listed everyweek on thursday and expire on friday the next week.”

 

[antares66]

Weekly options are listed several weeks before they expire, I think 6 weeks.
So this is incorrect: “weekly options are new listed everyweek on thursday and expire on friday the next week.”

Thanks. But what i have understood is that they are only tradable within one week. Is that correkt?

 

[guru]

Thanks. But what i have understood is that they are only tradable within one week. Is that correkt?

No, not correct.
They are listed so that everyone can trade them during those 6 weeks. There is no reason to list options that cannot be traded.

 

[antares66]

No, not correct.
They are listed so that everyone can trade them during those 6 weeks. There is no reason to list options that cannot be traded.

Thanks. I often read that they were tradable only within one week. This information wasn´t right. Thank you for explaining this to me

 

[OptionsOptionsOptions]

Thanks. I often read that they were tradable only within one week. This information wasn´t right. Thank you for explaining this to me

• You might have been reading an old article.
• When weeklies were first introduced they were only tradable for 7 days or so before they expired.
  
• Weeklies options are relatively new - about 10 years.

 

[JetFlankRight]

Weekly options are basically just options with non standard expiry. I.e they are options that expire on a day that's NOT the 3rd Friday. So in May the "normal" options will expire on the 15th, weeklies might expire on the 8th, the 22 or the 29.

 

[.sigma]

Yes its a lil confusing, weeklies are created a few weeks before they expire. But its "ideal" to trade them with <15DTE, which is when they are best utilized for my strategy at least.

I'm not trading weekly contracts that have 44DTE, I'd just trade the monthly expiration instead, which most likely will have a lot more liquidity in them.

 

[JBuck]

What am i missing?

Weekly options can go several weeks into the future and vary in their trading hours, settlement procedures, etc. I have copied a portion of my trading screen (thinkorswim) which shows you all the available weekly options for both the E-mini S&P 500 futures options and for the SPY equity options. The former trades on the CME's exchange, the latter on the CBOE's exchange. As you can see the /ES futures options have weeklys as far out as July 2020 (93 DTE), the SPY equity options out to May 2020 (44 DTE.) Weeklys expire on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Right now you can trade any of the weeklys that are listed on the exchange. Just because it is called a weekly doesn't mean that you are limited to trading those weeklys that may be weeks or months out.

For a better understanding of how weeklys work I highly recommend that you visit each of the exchanges's websites and read about them. Here are some links;

Futures Options (e.g. ES, YM, CL, GC, etc.)
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/options/weekly-options-on-futures.html
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/weekly-equity-index-options-on-futures.html
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/weekly-eom-options-faq.html

Equity Options (e.g. GOOG, AMZN, SPY, SPX, QQQ, etc.)
http://www.cboe.com/products/weeklys-options/available-weeklys

Best Regards,

J B
Futures Options Day Trader