{"id":23,"date":"2015-01-04T16:21:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T21:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=23"},"modified":"2016-07-05T15:48:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T19:48:53","slug":"expirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/expirations\/","title":{"rendered":"04) Expirations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this lesson we will be going over what\u00a0<b>expirations\u00a0<\/b>are and the different types of\u00a0<b>expirations<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>There are 4 groups of expirations, Weekly\u2019s, Monthly\u2019s, Quarterly\u2019s and LEAPs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><b><b>Weekly Expirations <\/b>expire on the close of trading Friday of each week. \u00a0The choice for weekly expirations was introduced in October of 2005. \u00a0Currently only the most actively traded stocks have weekly expirations.<\/b><\/b>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Monthly (Regular) Expirations <\/b>expire on the 3rd Friday of each month. \u00a0These are the most common type of expirations. \u00a0So, if a stock is optionable, at the very least they will likely have Monthly options available to trade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Quarterly Expirations<\/b> expire on the 3rd Friday of every 3rd month of the year (March, June, September, December). \u00a0This type of expiration is currently only available for very actively traded ETFs such as SPY, QQQ, DIA, IWM and stock indices such as SPX.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><b>LEAPS (Annual Expirations) : <\/b>LEAPS is an acronym for <b>L<\/b>ong-term <b>E<\/b>quity <b>A<\/b>ntici<b>P<\/b>ation <b>S<\/b>ecurities. \u00a0These expire on the 3rd Friday of January of the next 2 years out. \u00a0So, for March of 2014 you could buy LEAPs for January of 2015 or January of 2016.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>Which Expirations Should I Trade?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I would say that the answer to this is a question, \u201chow long do you intend to hold onto this trade?\u201d \u00a0I personally trade the weekly expirations for day trades and trade the monthly expirations at least 30 days away for swings trades (which are trades usually held for about 3-10 days).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re planning to buy and hold the trade for a longer term, like say 6 months or more, I\u2019d recommend trading the LEAPs.<br \/>\nThere are many ways to use different expirations days to your advantage, even mixing different expirations together in the same trade. \u00a0However, those are beyond the scope of this lesson. \u00a0I\u2019ll be sure to include them in the more advanced lessons.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"lcp_catlist\" id=\"lcp_instance_0\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/options-chain\/\">01) Options Chain<\/a><\/li><li class=\"current\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/expirations\/\">04) Expirations<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/calls-and-puts\/\">02) Calls and Puts<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/volume-and-open-interest\/\">09) Volume and Open Interest<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/greeks-beginner\/\">07) Greeks Beginner<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/strike-prices\/\">03) Strike Prices<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/moneyness\/\">05) Moneyness<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/selecting-a-broker\/\">10) Selecting a Broker<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/bid-ask\/\">08) Bid &#038; Ask<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/options\/basics\/order-actions\/\">06) Order Actions<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this lesson we will be going over what\u00a0expirations\u00a0are and the different types of\u00a0expirations. There are 4 groups of expirations, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-options-basics","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}