Nadex Reducing Trading Time Frames with 20-Minute Binary Options

Starting from November 3rd, the North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) will be offering its traders new, shorter durations for the expiry of their traded binary options. In a recent announcement the company has signaled the final phase of deploying 20-minute options based on the four most popular US indices – S&P, Russell 2000, NASDAQ and Dow Jones.

Each of the contracts will have a morning and afternoon session complete with expiration times for them, as well as separate ones during lunch hours – the former runs between 10AM and 4:00PM, while the latter is between 11:40AM and 2:20PM.

Depending on the index and time of day the binary options are traded, different strike levels will be set in advance.

In the company's CFTC filing regarding the new duration of the options, Nadex states that based on the volumes it has observed, intraday contracts are among the most actively traded ones on the venue. Following this finding, the regulated binary exchange aims to increase activity throughout the relatively short lifespan of the new contracts, and effectively grow the volume for the entire market session.

The move follows the ever-shortening length of binary options available in the industry as a whole, although the new offering is nowhere near the extremes found on off-exchange platforms such as SpotOption and Tradologic. These have already been offered for trade for two years now, or rather for bet, on options with one, two and five minute durations, not to mention even shorter time spans of 15, 30 and 45 seconds.

With this new option length, individuals and firms trading at Nadex from the US, Canada and Mexico will have the opportunity to bank on price movements in shorter periods, increasing their maneuverability.

Meanwhile, the parent company of Nadex, IG Markets, has reintroduced bitcoin binary options. After abandoning the asset rather hastily in 2013, IG Markets now offers a fairly robust variety of tradable Bitcoin products, by providing both classic and ladder style binary options and many strike prices and durations.