The option ticker explains four main things about the option: the underlying stock, whether it is a call or a put option, the expiration month and the strike price. An option ticker is quoted by a series of letters. This is a lot of information crammed into one ticker, but we can help you decode option ticker symbols.
Option Ticker Structure
An option ticker can be broken down into three parts. The first part of the option ticker is the option symbol, which can vary in letter length. Typically, this symbol will be found on all the options of the company and will be identical to the stock symbol. However, this is not an absolute. For example, Microsoft's ticker is MSFT, while its option symbol is quoted as both MSQ and MFQ. The second part of the option ticker is the expiration date and the call or put classification of the option, and it consists of a single letter. There are 12 possible expiration periods for options - one per month. Options classified from A to L are call options and M to X are put options. The third part to the option ticker is the strike price of the option, and this is also a single letter. Because there is a wide range of potential strike prices and a limited number of letters, each letter represents more than one strike price. This creates the need for a bit of guesswork, but nothing overly complex.
