DAS utilizes the following naming convention to uniquely identify an option contract.
The DAS Option Symbology consists of five parts which we will work through with this example symbology: +MSFT^G7D300
- The plus sign, ‘+’. This is the option indicator. Any symbol preceded by this sign will be identified as an option contract in DAS platforms.
- The option root symbol following the ‘+’, which in this case is ‘MSFT’. No white space allowed before, after or in between. Its length is variable. Be aware that weekly options may have a different root symbol than the underlying to indicate it is a weekly option, such as SPXW for SPX. In the options chain, search the underlying symbol (SPX in this case) to see all options.
- The Call/Put indicator. ‘^’ denotes Call contracts, ‘*’ denotes Put contracts.
- Expiration Date. This consists of 3 letters in year, month, day format.
For year, we start from year 2010 as ‘0’ and continue with letters in the alphabet once the numbers run out (ASCII Encoding). Thus, 2019 will be ‘9’, 2020 will be ‘A’, 2021 will be ‘B’, etc.;
For month, “123456789ABC” is used for Jan to Dec, respectively;
For day, “123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV” will be days 1- 31, respectively.
For our example: ‘G’ = 2026, ‘7’ = July, ‘D’ = 13. - The remaining numbers represent the strike price, decimal point included when necessary.
So, the final reading of +MSFT^G7D300 is: Option for MSFT, Call, Expiration 2027 July 13, Strike price of 300.
