Can I buy put options on an ADR?
Some ADRs have standardized options that trade on US exchanges.  If your stock/ADR is one of those, then you find the put option through most brokerages that deal with stock options and trade the option like you would on a regular stock.  If your ADR does not have standardized options, then your options will depend on where the ADR trades.  If it's OTC, you might not even be able to short it.  If it trades on a major exchange, the shorting the ADR may be a viable choice.
you can try CME DataSuite. Your broker gives you real time options quotes. If you do not have one you can open a scottrade account with just $500 deposit. When I moved my money from scottrade to ameritrade they did not close my account even till this day I can access my scottrade account and see real time quotes and the same research they offered me before. You can try withdrawing your deposit and see if it stays open like mine did. Really all you need to know is that American style can be exercised at any point, European options cannot be exercised early. Read on if you want more detail.  The American style Call is worth more because it can be exercised at any point. And when the company pays a dividend, and your option is in the money, if the extrinsic value is worth less than the dividend you can be exercised early. This is not the case for a European call. You cannot be exercised until expiration. I trade a lot of options, you wont be exercised early unless the dividend scenario I mentioned happens. Or unless the extrinsic value is nothing, but even then, unless the investor really wants that position, he is more likely to just sell the call for an equivalent gain on 100 shares of stock. Yes, past option prices are available for many options, but as far as I know not for free.  You can get them from, for example, OptionMetrics.  Probably there are other providers as well, which may be cheaper for an individual or small institution. OptionMetrics data comes from the National Best Bid and Offer.  Probably there are some over-the-counter options that are not included here, but for someone asking this question, OptionMetrics will most likely have the option you are interested in. I think it depends on your broker. Some brokers will not try to auto exercise in the money options. Others will try to do the exercise it if you have available funds. Your best bet, if find yourself in that situation, is to sell the option on the open market the day of or slightly before expiration. Put it on your calendar and don't forget, you could loose your profits. @#2 Its in the best interest of your broker to exercise because they get a commission. I think they are used to this situation where there is a lack of funds. Its not like bouncing a check. You will need to check with your broker on this. @#3 I think many or most options traders never intend on buying the underling stock. Therefore no, they do not always make sure there is enough funds to buy. Volume @ 0 doesn't mean that there are no buyers and sellers, it just means that there hasn't been any trades done yet. What you need to look for are the bids and offers (for selling and buying, respectively). For further expiration and NTM or IT options there will almost always be a bid and an offer (but it may be very wide). Now, in case where there is 0 bid (no one is willing to buy), you may still have a chance if the option has some value in it. For that - you need your broker to try to shop it to market making firms. Now, depending on who your broker is, this may or may not be possible. Alternatively, if you have DMA (direct market access) to the options exchanges, you can try to put in an offer of your own and wait for someone to execute against you, however do not expect to be traded with unless your price is out of line with the cost. However, in wide markets, you can try Lampost options (they may give you price improvement) or try to offer very close to the bid. You may save yourself a penny or two and perhaps get a rebate if you are using BATSO or NASDAQO markets (if you have DMA and pass-through exchange fees). The essential difference b/n ADR and a common share is that ADR do not have Voting rights. Common share has.  There are some ADR that would in certain conditions get converted to common stock, but by and large most ADR's would remain ADR's without any voting rights. If you are an individual investor, this difference should not matter as rarely one would hold such a large number of shares to vote on General meeting on various issues. The other difference is that since many countries have regulations on who can buy common shares, for example in India an Non Resident cannot directly buy any share, hence he would buy ADR. Thus ADR would be priced more in the respective market if there is demand. For example Infosys Technologies, an India Company has ADR on NYSE. This is more expensive around 1.5 times the price of the common share available in India (at current exchange rate). Thus if you are able to invest with equal ease in HK (have broker / trading account etc), consider the taxation of the gains in HK as well the tax treatment in US for overseas gains then its recommended that you go for Common Stock in HK. Else it would make sense to buy in US. I can't speak for all brokerages but the one I use requires cash accounts to have cash available to purchase the stock in this situation. With the cash available you would be able to purchase the stock if the option was exercised.  Hope this helps Do you need to buy car insurance?  If you do, you are buying to open a put option. "You're forgetting the fundamental issue, that you never have to actually exercise the options you buy.  You can either sell them to someone else or, if they're out of the money, let them expire and take the loss. It isn't uncommon at all for people to buy both a put and call option (this is a ""straddle"" when the strike price of both the put and call are the same). From Investopedia.com: A straddle is an options strategy in which the investor holds a position in both a call and put with the same strike price and expiration date, paying both premiums. This strategy allows the investor to make a profit regardless of whether the price of the security goes up or down, assuming the stock price changes somewhat significantly.   Read more: Straddle http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/straddle.asp#ixzz4ZYytV0pT" A broker does not have to allow the full trading suite the regulations permit.  From brokersXpress: Do you allow equity and index options trading in brokersXpress IRAs?     Yes, we allow trading of equity and index options in IRAs based on the trading level assigned to an investor. Trading in IRAs includes call buying, put buying, cash-secured put writing, spreads, and covered calls.  I understand OptionsXpress.com offers the same level of trading. Disclosure - I have a Schwab account and am limited in what's permitted just as your broker does. The trade you want is no more risky that a limit (buy) order, only someone is paying you to extend that order for a fixed time. The real answer is to ask the broker. If you really want that level of trading, you might want to change to one that permits it. My understanding is that all ETF options are American style, meaning they can be exercised before expiration, and so you could do the staggered exercises as you described. The risk situation of the put option is the same whether you own the stock or not.  You risk $5 and stand to gain 0 to $250 in the period before expiration (say $50 if the stock reaches $200 and you sell).   Holding the stock or not changes nothing about that.  What is different is the consideration as to whether or not to buy a put when you own the stock.  Without an option, you are holding a $250 asset (the stock), and risking that money.  Should you sell and miss opportunity for say $300? Or hold and risk loss of say $50 of your $250?  So you have $250 at risk, but can lock in a sale price of $245 for say a month by buying a put, giving you opportunity for the $300 price in that month.  You're turning a risk of losing $250 (or maybe only $50 more realistically) into a risk of losing only $5 (versus the price your stock would get today). Do you simply get call options you can sell on an options exchange? No, you don't get call options that you can sell on an options exchange. Rather, you get rights that you can (generally) sell on the stock exchange. The right issue is in essence a call option – in that it behaves like one, but it is not considered a standardized option contract. is there a special exchange where such rights issues are traded? No. It will normally be done on the stock exchange. "Of the two, an option is a more reliable but more expensive means to get rid of a stock. As sdg said, a put option is basically an insurance policy on the stock; you pay a certain price for the contract itself, which locks in a sale price up to a particular future date. If the stock depreciates significantly, you exercise the option and get the contract price; otherwise you let the contract expire and keep the stock. Long-term, these are bad bets as each expired contract will offset earnings, but if you foresee a near-term steep drop in the stock price but aren't quite sure, a put option is good peace of mind. A sell stop order is generally cheaper, but less reliable. You set a trigger price, say a loss of 10% of the stock's current value. If that threshold is reached, the stop order becomes a sell order and the broker will sell the stock on the market, take his commission (or a fixed price depending on your broker) and you get the rest. However, there has to be a buyer willing to buy at that price at the moment the trigger fires; if a stock has lost 10% rapidly, it's probably on the way down hard, and the order might not complete until you realize a 12% loss, or a 15%, or even 20%. A sell stop limit (a combination stop order and limit order) allows you to say that you want to sell if the stock drops to $X, but not sell if it drops below $X-Y. This allows you to limit realized losses by determining a band within which it should be sold, and not to sell above or below that price. These are cheaper because you only pay for the order if it is executed successfully; if you never need it, it's free (or very cheap; some brokers will charge a token service fee to maintain a stop or stop limit). However, if the price drops very quickly or you specify too narrow a band, the stock can drop through that band too quickly to execute the sell order and you end up with a severely depreciated stock and an unexercised order. This can happen if the company whose stock you own buys another company; VERY quickly, both stocks will adjust, the buying company will often plummet inside a few seconds after news of the merger is announced, based on the steep drop in working capital and/or the infusion of a large amount of new stock in the buying company to cover the equity of the purchased company. You end up with devalued stock and a worthless option (but one company buying another is not usually reason to sell; if the purchase is a good idea, their stock will recover). Another option which may be useful to you is a swaption; this basically amounts to buying a put option on one financial instrument and a call on another, rolled into one option contract specifying a swap. This allows you to pick something you think would rise if your stock fell and exchange your stock for it at your option. For example, say the stock on which you buy this swaption is an airline stock, and you contract the option to swap for oil. If oil surges, the airline's stock will tank sharply, and you win both ways (avoiding loss and realizing a gain). You'd also win if either half of this option realized a gain over the option price; oil could surge or the airline could tank and you could win. You could even do this ""naked"" since its your option; if the airline's stock tanks, you buy it at the crashed price to exercise the option and then do so. The downside is a higher option cost; the seller will be no fool, so if your position appears to be likely, anyone who'd bet against you by selling you this option will want a pretty high return." Moody's came out with an analysis today saying the requirement could be slightly good for for-profit hospitals (Bad-debt charges will decline. The expansion of healthcare coverage under the law will lessen for-profit hospital operators’ exposure to bad debts, which in turn will improve margins and cash flow. However, we expect that the growth rate of Medicare reimbursements will also slow down, offsetting the benefit of lower bad-debt expense and making the overall credit impact of the ruling neutral to slightly positive), negative for pharmaceutical cos. (Pharmaceutical companies will continue to pay for the full adoption of the Affordable Care Act in the form of higher rebates to the government for Medicaid drug costs, discounts to seniors covered under Medicare Part D drug plans and a new industry fee) and slightly negative for medical device firms (Beginning Jan. 1, 2013, US medical-device product sales will be subject to a 2.3% excise tax; the excise tax will be tax-deductible, resulting in an estimated effective tax rate of 1.5% on US device revenues).