In the international markets, the maturities of options on individual stocks go up to 9 months with a few exceptions. LEAPS (Long-Term Equity Anticipation Shares) are options on certain stocks and indices that have expiration of up to three years. LEAPS have proven to be very popular with about 8.5 million contracts traded on the CBOE in 1998 (As per CBOE market statistics). Although LEAPS are available on index options, most of the trading volume is in LEAPS on individual stocks.
FLEX options are available on stocks and indices and permit the investor to specify any exercise price. FLEX options can also have any desired expiration up to five years for index options and three years for options on individual stocks. FLEX options are a response on the part of the options exchanges to the growing over-the-counter market in which options have tailored exercise prices and expirations.
The expiration day of an exchange-traded option is the Saturday following the third Friday of the month; the last day on which the option trades is the third Friday on the month.
The way Indian markets are growing, it may be very soon that such a produce may be introduced with similar features to that of FLEX or LEAP.
BSE created history on June 9, 2000 by launching the first Exchange-traded Index Derivative Contract in India i.e. futures on the capital market benchmark index – the BSE Sensex. The inauguration of trading was done by Prof. J.R. Varma, member of SEBI and Chairman of the committee which formulated the risk containment measures for the derivatives market.
In sequence of product innovation, BSE commenced trading in Index Options on Sensex on June 1, 2001, Stock Options were introduced on 31 stocks on July 9, 2001 and Single Stock Futures were launched on November 9, 2002.
For a List of Futures & Options Underlying Asset click below:http://www.bseindia.com/markets/Derivatives/DeriReports/folist.aspx