You open your broker, you want to buy SPY or QQQ — the most liquid American ETFs in the world — and up pops that annoying little message: “This instrument is not available to retail investors in the European Union”. European regulation forces you to buy European clones with less liquidity and higher fees. You watch the Wall Street party from outside the window, but they won’t let you in. Until today.
The problem: the European barrier
European law (the PRIIPS regulation) forbids brokers from selling you an American ETF directly if its prospectus isn’t translated and adapted to the European format. You can’t hit the buy button — an error message pops up. They force you to use European versions that, in many cases, have wider spreads, less volume and higher management costs.
But here’s the interesting part: the law forbids buying the ETF directly. It does not forbid you from holding those shares in your portfolio. And this is exactly where financial options come in as our master key.
What you need to do it
To execute this with precision you need two things:
- A broker that executes real American options — like Interactive Brokers
- A platform that lets you analyze the options chain and the chart down to the last detail — like ProRealTime in its version 13
With this combination you have everything you need to unlock the American market in a 100% legal way.
Method A: Sell a Put (and get paid to get in)
This is the favorite method because, on top of getting the ETF shares, you get paid a premium for doing it. It works like this:
Let’s picture the silver ETF (SLV), which is trading at around $77.50. You open the options chain in ProRealTime, look for a short expiration — for example one week — and sell a put at the $76 strike.
When you do this, two things happen:
- A premium is credited straight into your account — in this case, around $300
- You take on the obligation to buy 100 shares of the ETF at $76 if the price ends up below that at expiration
What happens next?
- If on Friday the ETF is below $76 — on Monday 100 real SLV shares show up in your account. Nobody let you buy them directly, but the market has assigned them to you. They’re yours and you can hold them for as long as you want
- If the price doesn’t drop enough — you keep the $300 premium and repeat the following week. You get paid for trying to get in, unbeatable
This strategy is the Cash Secured Put we’ve already explained on the channel. Here we simply use it with an added purpose: to jump the European regulatory barrier.
Method B: Buy a Call and exercise it (immediate entry)
If you don’t want to wait and you need the shares now — because the market is running away and you can’t afford to miss the move — there’s the direct method.
- You open the options chain in ProRealTime
- You buy a call that is in the money and expires very soon
- You go to the Interactive Brokers account management interface and exercise your right
- The contract turns into 100 real shares of the ETF in your portfolio
European barrier jumped with a few clicks. The shares are yours from that moment.
Advantages and disadvantages
The advantages
- You trade the real American asset with all its liquidity — not a European clone with wider spreads
- You get access to ProRealTime’s technical analysis and volume tools, which brokers’ web platforms simply don’t offer
- It’s all 100% legal and regulated — you don’t need CFDs, synthetic products or brokers in exotic jurisdictions
The big disadvantage: the minimum size
Summary of the two methods
Choose the method based on your situation
Method A (Cash Secured Put) — you’re in no rush, you want to collect premium while you wait for the entry. You sell a short-term put and wait for assignment
Method B (Buy a Call + exercise) — you want the shares now, without waiting. You buy a short-term ITM call and exercise it
Requirement for both — enough capital to back the 100 shares of the ETF
Knowledge needed — knowing what a put, a call, an assignment and an exercise are
European regulation tries to fence off the open field, but with ProRealTime to analyze and Interactive Brokers to execute, you can jump that fence legally. You don’t need CFDs, you don’t need synthetic products — you need knowledge and capital to back it up.
Conclusion
If you have a serious portfolio and you want to manage it the way investment funds do, financial options are the only professional door for the European retail investor. They let you access the most liquid American ETFs in the world without relying on European clones with worse execution. The put method pays you to wait for the entry, and the call method gives you immediate access. The American market is open to you again.
