# Options Expiration Explained: AM vs PM Settlement Source: https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm Retrieved: 2026-10-17T16:08:08.326Z Uploaded: 2026-10-16 Duration: 7:34 Topic: Market Structure Video file: https://storage.googleapis.com/squawkflow-videos/opex-am-pm/opex-am-pm-06f09a08.mp4 Captions: https://storage.googleapis.com/squawkflow-videos/opex-am-pm/captions-be658c9c.vtt When standard SPX stops trading, why it settles to Friday's opening trades, and how SPXW runs to the close. Dated to the capture. AI voice. AI voice: the narration is a synthetic voice reading a script SquawkFlow wrote. Educational only, not investment advice. Nothing here is a forecast or a recommendation to trade. ## Chapters - 0:00 Two expirations in one week (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=0) - 0:47 What OPEX means (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=47) - 1:20 The 2026 calendar, and the June exception (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=80) - 1:59 Standard SPX: AM-settled (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=119) - 3:03 Why the settlement value can surprise you (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=183) - 3:38 SPXW: PM-settled (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=218) - 4:09 Two clocks in one OPEX week (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=249) - 4:38 Two books, two numbers (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=278) - 5:39 Stocks, ETFs and the VIX date (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=339) - 6:17 What expiration actually changes (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=377) - 6:57 Wrap (https://squawkflow.com/videos/opex-am-pm?t=417) ## Related - Explainer: https://squawkflow.com/learn/why-the-market-pins-on-fridays - Tool page: https://squawkflow.com/opex ## Transcript # Options Expiration Explained: AM vs PM Settlement Narration: AI voice. ### Two expirations in one week Monthly options expiration week has a trap. Two SPX expirations. Two different clocks. And one of them stops trading the day before the date printed on it. Here's what OPEX is, how the 2026 calendar runs, and the difference between AM and PM settlement. Take November. This is SquawkFlow's page for the cycle, captured on October 15, 2026. Expiration: Friday, November 20, 2026. Last day to trade AM-settled SPX: Thursday, November 19, 2026. One day earlier. That gap is the whole story. ### What OPEX means OPEX is trader shorthand for options expiration. Most often it means the monthly, on the third Friday. That's when the largest block of listed open interest comes off the board at once. Options now expire on almost every trading day. The third Friday still concentrates far more contracts. Traders write the monthly as MOPEX. In company accounts, the same letters mean operating expenditure. Not this video. ### The 2026 calendar, and the June exception The calendar. Four of the twelve monthlies are quarterly: March, June, September and December. Cboe calls those triple witching. The third-Friday rule is wrong for June 2026. This calendar reads every date off the Cboe 2026 expiration calendar instead. Here's why. NYSE observed Juneteenth on Friday, June 19. So the June expiration moved to the business day before. Thursday, June 18, 2026. Check the exchange calendar, not the formula. ### Standard SPX: AM-settled Now the two products. Standard monthly SPX is AM-settled. Cboe's wording is quoted on the page. Trading ordinarily ceases on the business day before the settlement value is calculated. Usually a Thursday. For November, that's Thursday, November 19, 2026. Thursday's close is the last exit. On Friday morning, the position gets settled for you. The settlement value isn't Friday's open. It isn't the close either. Cboe builds it from the opening trade of each component stock, in its primary market, on expiration morning. Traders call it the Special Opening Quotation. The S.O.Q. Why mornings? Cboe completed the move to AM settlement in 1992. That followed SEC concerns that PM-settled index options were moving the cash market into the close. ### Why the settlement value can surprise you Here's the surprise. The index's constituent stocks don't all open at the same instant. The settlement value is stitched together from each one's own first trade. Not from a continuous index reading. So it can land outside the index's entire range for the day. Cboe measured this on quarterly AM-settled expirations. It happens. Most often above the daily high. A standard contract held into Friday can settle at a level the index never traded. ### SPXW: PM-settled The other family is SPXW. The weeklys and the end-of-month series. These are PM-settled. They trade right up to the close on expiration day. 4 p.m. Eastern. On a half-day holiday, 1 p.m. Eastern. Most same-day and weekly activity runs through this root. And SPX has listed expirations on every weekday since 2022. So this book exists Monday through Friday. ### Two clocks in one OPEX week Put them together. A monthly expiration week holds two distinct events. An AM-settled tranche. Done trading by Thursday's close. Settled on Friday's opening trades. And a PM-settled tranche that runs to Friday's bell. Reading Friday's whole session as the work of open interest that stopped trading the afternoon before is a common misreading. ### Two books, two numbers Two books also means two sets of open interest. The page splits max pain by root. The chain was read on October 14, 2026. At 4:14 p.m. Eastern. AM-settled SPX: 7,600. PM-settled SPXW: 7,700. Both roots combined: 7,600. Different books, different numbers. Max pain is a positioning reference from prior-close open interest. It moves as open interest changes. The tile also carries the move options price to the November close. Plus or minus 4.34 percent. That's 335.2 points, one standard deviation. Priced on the PM-settled SPXW series, as of the same read. Risk-neutral. Not a forecast. ### Stocks, ETFs and the VIX date Other products keep other hours. Single-stock options trade through Friday's 4 p.m. close. Options on broad ETFs, SPY included, trade to 4:15. In-the-money contracts that aren't closed get exercised into positions after the close. The page lists the AM last-trade day for every cycle. And VIX options and VX futures run on their own date. A Wednesday, thirty days before the following month's SPX expiration. For November, that's Wednesday, November 18, 2026. ### What expiration actually changes So what does expiration change? The durable effect is subtraction. A large block of open interest stops existing. Every hedging obligation attached to it goes with it. A level quoted for weeks can disappear the next Monday. The positions behind it were retired. OPEX changes a constraint. Not a direction. One caution. Any story about what dealers are doing at a strike rests on a sign assumption. Open interest says a contract exists. Not which side the dealer holds. ### Wrap Bottom line. Standard SPX stops trading on Thursday and settles to Friday's opening trades. SPXW trades to Friday's close. VIX keeps its own date. The OPEX page answers one question, is today OPEX, and lists the next three expirations with the AM last-trade day. The write-up on the Thursday wrinkle, with sources, is on the learn page linked with this video. Education, not advice. Full write-up with sources: [/learn/why-the-market-pins-on-fridays](/learn/why-the-market-pins-on-fridays) Educational content, not investment advice. Levels shown are as captured on 2026-10-15 16:07 ET; they are not current.