Nasdaq resumes trading of certain ETF options

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Trading in the options on certain exchange traded funds, including the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF , was resumed on Nasdaq’s exchanges after a brief halt, Nasdaq said on Monday.

Nasdaq had halted trading in options on some ETFs on Monday due to late notification of capital gains distributions, the exchange said in a system status message.

While ETFs help minimize tax liabilities, they do incur capital gains throughout the year. ETF issuers typically make distributions to all shareholders of a fund that incurred capital gains in order to cover the costs to individual investor.

Options prices typically have to be adjusted following such a distribution.

For instance, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF announced a special cash dividend of $0.266326 per share, according to a notification on Monday on the website for equity derivatives clearing organization OCC.

The iShares MSCI South Africa ETF , iShares U.S. Energy ETF , iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF , iShares Russell 1000 Value ETF and iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF , were the other issues on which options trading has resumed, Nasdaq said.

Nasdaq did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why there had been a delay in the notification of capital gains distributions for the concerned ETFs.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)