Old close_price_date for options

Alpaca Trading
1

Hi

I am trying to get CALL options contracts available for TSLA.

Here is the API I use:

Here is what I get:

{   'close_price': '4.1',
    'close_price_date': datetime.date(2024, 7, 19),
    'expiration_date': datetime.date(2024, 7, 26),
    'id': '19fcadfd-1de1-4244-912f-6b33e5abffce',
    'name': 'TSLA Jul 26 2024 260 Call',
    'open_interest': '10051',
    'open_interest_date': datetime.date(2024, 7, 19),
    'root_symbol': 'TSLA',
    'size': '100',
    'status': <AssetStatus.ACTIVE: 'active'>,
    'strike_price': 260.0,
    'style': <ExerciseStyle.AMERICAN: 'american'>,
    'symbol': 'TSLA240726C00260000',
    'tradable': True,
    'type': <ContractType.CALL: 'call'>,
    'underlying_asset_id': UUID('8ccae427-5dd0-45b3-b5fe-7ba5e422c766'),
    'underlying_symbol': 'TSLA'
}

Please pay attention to these two lines:
‘close_price_date’: datetime.date(2024, 7, 19)
‘close_price’: ‘4.1’

For me it seems that the price of the contract is too old ( today is 22.07 ).
If I take a look in InteractiveBrokers, the similar contract costs about $6.75.

How can I build the strategy if I don’t know the current price of the contract?

Regards

2

@Maksim_Solovjov You asked about the price returned in the get_options_contracts endpoint. That price is the end of day close price but isn’t updated until just before markets open the next day. So in your case, you called the endpoint on July 23 before the data was updated. It still had the previous trading days data which was July 19. Many of the Trading API endpoints (eg assets and get_options_contracts) are based upon data updated before markets open once a day. The get_options_contracts endpoint is intended to get information about the contract and the price is only ancillary which is why it updates so infrequently.

If you are wanting pricing data you should use the Market Data APIs. Perhaps the latest_trade but several of the other endpoints will also return trade a quote data. Use the Market Data endpoints and you will get the most up to date prices.