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what is the options industry changing about option symbols in february, 2010?
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the change is generally known as the options symbology initiative (or "osi") and there is a highly comprehensive guide to what occurred here. the basic gist of what occurred was a shift from: a coded system in which a shorter (3   to 5 letter symbol) could be used, but   the symbols required a data source to   determine what they meant. msq ad   used to be a msft jan 20 option, but   you had to look up msq in a table to   know that. to: a system in which much longer symbols   are needed, but they contain all the   information required to identify a   unique option: dell 4.000 c 5/16/2010   isn't easy to type, but once you know   how to read it, it's easy to see that   it's an option on dell, expiring on may 16th 2010, is a call (rather   than a put,) and has a strike price   of 4. as to why they did it, there are a number of benefits, but most important reason is this one:  they were running out of symbols.  the number of permutations of 3-5 letter symbols had been exceeded by the number of options that had been listed, resulting in the need to "recycle" symbols.   this meant that a current option symbol would be the same as an old one, in some cases on a different stock, which was wreaking havoc on historical data.
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