The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) today announced that as of Thursday, July 1, all new Weekly options series listed at CBOE will begin trading on Thursdays and expire the following Friday. Prior to this change, new series were listed on Fridays. The additional day will expand market participants' ability to roll trades from one Weekly expiration to the next Weekly expiration.
Weekly options, first introduced by CBOE in 2005, are one-week options that expire at the end of a week unless an options expiration already exists. Except for the expiration date, Weeklys generally have the same contract specifications and offer the same continuous, two-sided quotes as standard options.
Trading volume in Weekly index options at CBOE continues to grow. Average daily volume (ADV) for Weekly index options in May 2010 totaled 55,373 contracts, compared to 17,709 contracts ADV in May 2009 and 6,673 contracts ADV in May 2008.
Earlier this month, CBOE added new Weekly options on several exchange traded funds (ETFs) and individual equities. For an up-to-date list of Weeklys offered by CBOE and contract specifications, see www.cboe.com/weeklys.