Weekly options, or weeklies, are options which have weekly expiration dates, as opposed to the original monthly options.
Weeklies were introduced in 2005 for increased flexibility for option traders. These contracts offer some advantages to traders by way of greater selection for time to expiration, which can be particularly useful around earnings announcements, economic data releases, scheduled corporate conference calls, and other market-moving events.
Originally, weekly options had a life cycle of just 8 days (from Thursday until the Friday of the next week), although now it’s not uncommon to find weekly options available farther out in time. The effect of time decay is magnified in these contracts due to the limited duration of their existence, and their liquidity is generally reduced as compared to monthly expirations.
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