NYSE Euronext U.S. Options Exchanges First To Expand Short Term Options Program To Five Consecutive Weekly Expirations - Five Weekly Options Terms For 10 Of The Most Active Options Classes To Be Available On NYSE Amex And NYSE Arca

NYSE Euronext’s U.S. options exchanges, NYSE Amex and NYSE Arca, today announced that they are the first exchanges to receive SEC approval to expand the listing and trading of their Short Term Option Series program from a single week to five consecutive weeks. Effective Thursday, November 15, 2012, the products will be available as follows: AAPL, BAC, BP, C and XLF on NYSE Arca Options and EEM, GLD, IWM, QQQ, and SPY on NYSE Amex Options.

NYSE Amex was the first exchange to be approved to list and trade Short Term Option Series on single stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on June 4, 2010. Since inception, weekly options trading on both NYSE Amex and NYSE Arca accounted for over 223 million contracts traded. For the month of October, NYSE Euronext U.S. options exchanges executed 12.5 million transactions in weekly options, more than any other options exchange group.

“We are pleased to be expanding our Short Term Option Series program as a direct response to growing customer demand to trade weekly products,” said Steve Crutchfield, head of NYSE Euronext U.S. Options Exchanges.  “We look forward to continuing to build on our track record of providing innovative products like these so investors and traders can access additional trading strategies that are tailored to their individual trading and investing needs.”

On Thursday, November 15, 2012, NYSE Amex and NYSE Arca options will list weekly options in the following classes to expire on November 23, November 30, December 7, and December 14. 

NYSE Euronext offers customers two unique platforms to trade U.S. Options with reliability, transparency and efficiency: NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex Options. Together, these options exchanges present a compelling dual market structure with the choice of price-time priority on NYSE Arca Options or the traditional market-maker model and expanded array of services of NYSE Amex Options.    

The SEC approval of the NYSE Amex Options filing can be found at:  http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/nysemkt/2012/34-68191.pdf