At what time do options on futures expire?
In the United States, options expire at the close of trading, typically 3pm Central Standard Time. It's critical that investors and traders be aware of the exact date and time that a given product will expire before entering a new position.
Options that expire at the close of the market are considered p.m. and options that expire the morning of the last trading day are a.m. The vast majority of options on futures expire at the close of the market on the last trading day, but there are notable exceptions.
Summary. The expiration time is when the options contract becomes void and no longer carries any value. Usually, the last day of trading is the third Friday of the month. However, the actual expiration time is the following Saturday at 11:59 a.m. EST.
It is the last Thursday of every month. For example, if you buy a futures contract on the 14th of January 2022, the expiry date of the contract would be the 27th of January 2022, the last Thursday of the month.
SPX offers options with end-of-month (EOM) expiration. SPX EOM options feature expiration dates that fall on the last business day of the month, as opposed to the standard third Friday of the month expirations. SPX EOM options are PM-settled. Trading in expiring SPX EOMs closes at 3:00 pm (CT) on their expiration date.
Expiring options will be automatically exercised if they're ITM by $0.01 or more as of the 3 p.m. CT price (for equity options) and 3:15 p.m. CT price (for options on indexes). In general, the option holder has until 4:30 p.m. CT on expiration day to exercise the contract.
Futures markets are able to be traded virtually 24 hours a day, 6 days per week. Each futures product has their own times to trade. What Hours Do S&P Futures Trade? E-mini S&P 500 futures markets are open from 6:00 pm EST to 5:00 pm EST and trade on the CME Globex platform.
The expiration date for listed monthly stock options in the United States is normally the third Friday of the contract month at 3pm Central Standard Time (CST).
Futures contracts need to be settled before the expiration date to avoid penalties. However, there is no penalty on not settling an options contract before the expiration. You can simply let the contract expire if you wish not to buy or sell the asset.
The Bank Nifty monthly options contracts expire on the last Friday of the expiry month and weekly options contracts expire on every Friday of the week. If last Friday is a trading holiday, the contracts expire on the previous trading day.
Can options expire on Wednesday?
Bank Nifty Weekly Index Options Expiry Day has been moved from Thursday to Wednesday.
As with any investment, it's essential to manage risk by not overextending oneself. It can be tempting to buy many options on expiry day in hopes of a huge payoff, but this increases the likelihood of significant losses.
Same day options trading, colloquially known as zero days to expiration or “0DTE,” has grown in the past year, but it is hardly a new phenomenon. After all, any option, at some point in its lifetime, will offer the opportunity to trade on its day of expiration.
According to NASDAQ, options technically expire at 11:59 AM Eastern Standard time on the date of expiration, which is a Saturday, oddly enough. Public holders of options contracts, however, must indicate their desire to trade no later than 5:30 PM on the business day preceding the option expiration date.
SPX options are AM-settled options that expire monthly on the third Friday. SPXW options are weekly (and daily) options that expire after market close (PM-settled). On the AM-settled options, the last day of trading is the Thursday before the expiration date.
All PM-settled day of expiration options for NDX, RUT, SPX, OEX and XEO stop trading at 3:00 pm.
For traditional monthly options, according to the Options Clearing Corporation, the official expiration time for options is the third Saturday of the expiration month at 11:59 a.m. Eastern time. (So right before noon the following day.)
Options with zero days till expiry, or 0DTE options for short, are option contracts that expire on the same day they are traded. When an option reaches this point in its life cycle, there is little time remaining to exercise the right to purchase or sell the underlying asset.
Around-the-clock trading opportunities
Futures markets are open nearly 24 hours a day, six days a week, allowing you to react to global events, hedge, and speculate on a variety of indices, commodities, and currencies to help manage your portfolio outside of U.S. stock market hours.
A pattern day trader who executes four or more round turns in a single security within a week is required to maintain a minimum equity of $25,000 in their brokerage account. But a futures trader is not required to meet this minimum account size.
Does PDT apply to futures options?
Futures. PDT rules don't apply to futures trading, but futures have their own set of rules; they are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Plus, futures contracts use leverage, which means they're traded in margin accounts that require special privileges.
So while options on futures have the potential to make more efficient use of your capital, they also have the potential to expire worthless and lose value within a certain period of time.
Option holders have until 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the business day immediately prior to the expiration date or, in the case of Quarterly Options Series, on the expiration date, to make a final decision to exercise or not exercise an expiring option.
You really shouldn't consider exercising options at expiration – it's just not worth it unless you are a big “fan” of the stock and company. Unless you bought a call to take a long-term position in the stock, you are generally better off closing the option than purchasing the shares.
Once an option reaches its expiration date, it either gets exercised if it is ITM or expires worthless if it is ATM or OTM. There are no provisions for extending the expiration date for these types of options.
