Why are some option chains quoted in red?

Posted by made to trade on December 12, 2011 (04:31PM)


Title says all.  I'm looking at some LEAPS and the following are in red font:

IV Delta Open Int Vol Change Last

What does that mean?  Why's it red?

Posted by TampaJake on December 12, 2011 (04:59PM)

Those are non-standard options, sometimes called exotic options. Here is a blog that explains it:

http://community.tradeking.com/members/optionsguy/blogs/21306-watch-out-for-non-standard-options

Posted by made to trade on December 12, 2011 (05:36PM)


Thanks!  How do you figure out what the specifications are?  It doesn't give me a ticker symbol like in the link you showed me.

Posted by spshapiro on December 12, 2011 (05:53PM)

Non standard options come about when a stock split or an extraordinary dividend has been declared after the regular option starts to trade.  It is the way that the market adjusts the situation so that there is no ‘advantage’ Noobies sometimes look at these and think they got a ‘deal’ only to find out there’s no deal at all and the options are generally less liquid.  If you don’t know what you are doing here, you would be best to stay away.    

Posted by OldFart on December 12, 2011 (06:25PM)

mtt - some legwork required, like finding and reading the CBOE or OCC options adjustment notes It is very difficult here at TK to trade these options, you can only close them. Some time ago :I wanted to roll-out my position to the next month using adjusted options and it was a BIG deal. 

Posted by made to trade on December 12, 2011 (10:47PM)

OldFart said: mtt - some legwork required, like finding and reading the CBOE or OCC options adjustment notes It is very difficult here at TK to trade these options, you can only close them. Some time ago :I wanted to roll-out my position to the next month using adjusted options and it was a BIG deal. 

 Thanks.

So if you have an adjusted option, you can close it easily?

Posted by TampaJake on December 13, 2011 (07:36AM)


made to trade said:
Thanks!  How do you figure out what the specifications are?  It doesn't give me a ticker symbol like in the link you showed me.

 Options symbols like those in the post are no longer used. Tradeking does not put up the option name on the site but generally goes by the symbol/strike/expiration date once you make a purchase. The actual symbol for the option can be seen on yahoo's finance page. Pull up the stock symbol then click on options on the left hand side. Not sure if they have any info on the specifications.

Most traders will stay away from non-standard options. As OF said they can be difficult to trade. OF said it was a BIG DEAL as in difficult, not that he made a lot of money. If you see a large open interest a good portion can be from traders who owned an option before a merger/ acquisition, etc.

I am pretty sure that Tradeking will require a phone call to buy or sell non-standard options. They do this to protect those who may try to trade them without understanding all of the aspects of the trade.

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