Options trading is one of the ways to profit from the volatility in stocks. Options contracts give you the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying stocks before a certain date. So instead of directly investing in those stocks, you can invest in options and build a much larger portfolio with the same investment. Options contracts are now available on most of the stocks, commodities, currencies and other assets. You can even trade options on futures contracts. Now, most of the people trade stock options. When you trade stock options, you need to know a few dates that are popularly known as the Witching Dates. All stock options contracts expire on the third Friday of each month. Options on futures expire on different dates depending on the contract. Sometimes, different classes of options expire on the same date. These dates are known as the Double, Triple and Quadruple Witching Dates. Double Witching Days are those when any two of the different classes of options contracts like the stock options, stock index options or the stock index futures options expire. Triple Witching Days is when these three classes expire on the same date. This date is the third Friday in the last month of each quarter. Quadruple Witching Days are those when these three classes of options contracts expire along with the individual stock futures options. There is a difference between trading a stock options contract and the stock futures options contract. When trading the stock futures options contract, you need to know how to trade options in general coupled with the intricacies of trading that particular futures contract. A good example can be that of the S&P 500 futures options. This options contract is written on the S&P 500 stock index futures contract. Now, when you trade, the S&P 500 stock index futures, the value of the contract is obtained by multiplying the S&P 500 index value with $250. So, if the value of S&P 500 stock index is at 1,000 points, the value of the S&P 500 stock index futures contract will be $250,000. So when you trade options you need to understand these options witching dates as they can affect your portfolio returns. Knowing these dates helps you to trade or not trade on that date keeping in view the options contract that you are trading.
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