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Options 101
What Is a Weekly Option?
Weeklies were the innovation that made short-term options trading mainstream — and 0DTE is just weeklies taken to their logical extreme.
NoVo Options Trading · 2026
Weekly options are contracts that expire at the end of a given week rather than monthly — offering more frequent expirations, faster decay, and precise short-term trading. They’re the foundation of the 0DTE era.
What they are
Traditionally, options expired monthly (third Friday). Weeklies added expirations every week, letting traders target short-term views precisely and cheaply. For SPY, expirations expanded from monthly to weekly to eventually every weekday — so today there’s a same-day (0DTE) option available daily. A 0DTE is just a weekly on its expiration day.
Why they matter
Weeklies are cheaper (less time value), decay faster, and enable short-term precision — ideal for active trading but unforgiving on timing. Their proliferation is why 0DTE trading exploded: there’s always a near-term expiration to trade. See weekly vs monthly for the comparison and SPY’s weekly schedule.
Weeklies made short-term options mainstream; daily expiries made them instantaneous. 0DTE is a weekly living its last day.
The takeaway
Weekly options expire weekly (now daily for SPY), enabling cheap, precise, fast-decaying short-term trades. They’re the basis of 0DTE scalping — NoVo’s arena. Understand them as the bridge from monthly options to the daily-expiry world.
More on this: The Quiet Edge: Short-Term Rates on the Cash a 0DTE Trader Holds · Weekly Options, Explained
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NoVo is a software tool for market analysis and for executing trades you initiate, not financial advice. This article is general education, not investment advice. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss, up to and including your entire capital. NoVo makes no guarantee of profit, win rate, or performance, and past results do not predict future outcomes. You are responsible for your own broker account, configuration, and trading decisions.