Options trading
Expiration date
Definition
The last day the contract exists. Standard monthly options expire on the third Friday of the month. Many stocks and ETFs also list weekly expirations, and as of October 2026 SPX and SPY have expirations every trading day.
Example
Say you hold a $50 call on a stock, and it expires on the third Friday of the month. If the stock closes that day at $49.80, the call expires worthless; if it closes at $53, the call is worth $3 per share, or $300, and is usually exercised automatically. That exercise means buying 100 shares for $5,000, which is why many holders sell the call before the close.
Hypothetical numbers, for illustration only.
Also defined in
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