Why is XYZ $70.5 strike call more expensive than $68 strike call?

Question

The link below shows the February 16 call option listing for company XYZ.

I used to think that, the higher the strike price, the cheaper the call option. Obviously, the price pattern for this company (and other companies as well) fluctuates. In particular:

• $68 is at $0.07
• $69.5 is at $0.15
• $70.5 is at $0.18
• $73 is at $0.12
• Everything in between is substantially less

My questions:

1. Why does this trend hold, i.e. why does a call with a higher strike cost more than a call with a lower strike?
2. Why are there calls, for e.g the $69 strike, that have nobody bidding for them?

Answer 1

Is the price you are quoting the bid, ask, or last?

If this was the last, then the information could be days old. The bid or ask may be up to date pricing but the other side may have no interest at that price.

This kind of thing often occurs when prices are drastically out of or in the money; or very close to expiration.

Answer 2

The ticker is QCOM

The options you list expire on 2/16. On 2/15 when you wrote your question, QCOM was trading at 65.28. Unless the price jumps 10% tomorrow, those options will expire worthless. I'm not surprised to see some odd numbers for out-of-the-money options with one day to go. If you look at the in-the-money options or longer dated options (e.g. those expiring in March) you'll see more realistic quotes.

Answer 3

You could be looking at bad data.

You may be looking at the last trade which could have been second, minutes or hours ago.

The B/A spread on these could be wide while the option premium for nearby strikes is narrow. So the last sale at the bid of the lower strike ($0.15) could be lower in price than the most recent buy at the ask ($0.18) of the next higher strike. For example:

$69.50 is $0.15 x $0.25

$70.50 is $0.12 x $0.18

If you provide the symbol, the guessing will stop and we'll be able to tell you exactly why the pricing appears this way.

EDIT: It's the next day during regular market hours. As expected, the bid price of all QCOM calls is lower for each higher strike and higher for each put strike. The only exception is where there is no interest in the option and therefore no bid.

Answer 4

It's far easier to look at these numbers once more information is disclosed. The ticker was less of an issue than these facts.

• Stock price $65.28
• Option expiration 1 day away.
• Next earnings announcement over 2 months away.

After hours, no bid/asks were shown, but these are the last trades. With one trading day left, there is virtually no value to the out of the money strikes. At the market open today, most of the strikes I listed will show a zero bid price. There are strikes available up to $100. And for what it's worth, the $86 strike still shows last trade at $1.75.