Trading Overnight CME Options on TWS

Study Notes:

Trading CME Future Options through Interactive Brokers (IBKR)

The CME Group offers nearly 24-hour trading in future options for a suite of equity indexes – the Micro E-mini S&P 500, (Symbol: MES), E-mini S&P 500 (Symbol: ES), Micro E-Mini Nasdaq 100 (Symbol: MNQ), and E-mini Nasdaq 100 (Symbol: NQ).

Interactive Broker’s clients have access to the CME extended trading hours and are eligible to trade these selective products from 6pm Sunday through 5pm ET Fridays with a daily maintenance period between 5pm and 6pm ET if they have Future Options.

In this video the investor will enter an ES index future option in the TWS Order Entry panel by entering a symbol and using the drop-down chain.  It is important to note that they could also click on a symbol in a Watchlist to populate the Order Entry Panel.

Entering an Order in a CME Future Option in Trader Workstation

In the upper right-hand corner of the Order-Entry panel the investor clicks on the white box, enters the symbol ES, and Enter on their keyboard. In the drop down the investor scrolls down to E-mini S&P 500 – CME area, Futures Options and selects the month and year that they want to trade. A contract selection box will appear, and the investor can select the last trading day or expiration, strike, put or call, and trading class to narrow down the list of the contracts. When ready click on the contract to populate the Order Entry Panel and click ok.

Next the investor chooses to buy or sell, the quantity, order type, in this case since the investor is trading after regular hours, they will choose Limit and enter a price.  They will then choose the Time-in-Force, in this case GTC, and when ready click Submit. An order confirmation window will appear and when the investor is ready to send, they click Transmit. The order will populate the Activity window below.

CME’s suite of equity index future options that trade nearly 24-hours offer IBKR clients a convenient way to manage risk outside of regular trading hours.

Resources: 

Overnight Trading