Understanding Options Symbols

You can find the underlying stock price, along with the option strike price, expiration date, and whether it was a “Put” or “Call” right from the option symbol!

AAPL1504L85 is the way we write our options and can differ from other websites or brokerages.
Our options are written: Symbol Year Day (Call or Put and Month) Strike Price.

Call or Put and month:
A – L are for January – December Calls respectively
M – X are for January – December Puts respectively

In the example above AAPL1504L85 is an AAPL 2015 December Call for $85 strike price.

About Kevin Smith

Kevin is the content manager for Personal Finance Lab and is from Chicago, Illinois. He has a Master's Degree in Economics from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. In addition to an economics background, he has also built training manuals to prepare finance companies for licensing requirements in mortgage loan origination and insurance sales.