SPX Options vs. SPY Options: You Must Know the Difference

There are many ways to participate in the broad equity market, and trading options on the S&P 500 is one of them. After understanding many of the similarities and differences between SPX options and SPY options, you can see what works best for your trading style.

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• The fundamental difference is that SPX options are based on the $S&P 500 Index, while SPY options are based on the $Spdr S&P 500 Etf that tracks the index. You can not buy or sell indices directly. In contrast, investors can trade ETFs freely in the open market and potentially receive a dividend every quarter, just like buying stock shares.

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• The difference explains why SPX options are settled in cash (you cannot own the SPX shares) and SPY options are settled in shares once the options are exercised. Moreover, the early exercise can make sense if the dividend exceeds the option's time value for long in-the-money call option positions.

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• SPY options are American-style meaning option holders can exercise their options at any time before expiration. In contrast, SPX options are European style, meaning they can only be exercised on the expiration date. As a result, index options sellers don't have any early assignment risk. For this reason, some spread traders prefer SPX options over SPY options.

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Webull now supports more multi-leg options strategies in index options 🎉! However, there are some strategies that remain unavailable for index option trading. Covered calls/collars/covered puts/protective puts are not supported in trading index options. These strategies involve buying or selling the underlying security, so they’re available for options on ETFs such as SPY, but they cannot be used for indices because they are not tradable.

Looking closely, you can see that each SPX contract is about 10 times the value of a SPY option because the S&P 500 Index is approximately 10X times higher than SPY in numerical terms. Although trading SPX options requires more capital, the tax treatment on SPX options is better. Under section 1256 of the Tax Code, SPX options qualify for 60% long-term/40% short-term rates, even if the option is held for less than a year. Meanwhile, more expiration dates in SPX options allow more flexibility for institutions for risk management.

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Tap here and get started with paper trading! 

Disclaimer: All trading symbols displayed are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to portray recommendations