The Options Clearing
Corporation (OCC) has mandated that all firms change their option
symbols by February 12, 2010.
On Feb 1, 2010
Stricknet.com (Strickland & Associates) adopted the industry format
set forth by the OCC.
Industry Format
Symbol:MSQ 101120C00027.500
Underlying
Root
Expiration Year
Expiration Month
Expiration Day
Call/Put
Whole Strike
Fractional Strike
MSQ
10
11
20
C
00027
500
The symbols are all in the 21 byte
industry standard format. 6 characters for the underlying
symbol, 6 characters for the date (yymmdd), one character for the
call/put indicator (C/P), 5 digits for the interger part of the
strike and three digits for the decimal part.
Example:
A
100116C00012500 (This is an option for Agilent)
AOL 10016P00027000 (This
is an option for AOL)
Important:
The option root is currently being used at the beginning of the
symbol, but that will change! The OCC has established a window
of time (from January to May of 2010) called "Consolidation".
During that time the option root will be replaced with the
stock ticker symbol. It is going to be a process done in
alphabetical order. There's no way to jump the gun and go
ahead and use the ticker instead of the root because of non-standard
options and other technical issues. So for the time being you
will see the option root, and then over a period of weeks it will be
replaced with the stock ticker symbol.
Stricknet will use the option industry
standard and not vary from their format. Some firms are
modifying their symbols, which will cause some confusion, but we
will stay with the 21 byte format.
This changeover is massive for
everyone involved and even though we didn't cause it, we do regret
the inconvenience it has burdened everyone with.
