It stands for long-term equity anticipation security; an American call or put option on securities or indexes. This kind of options (equity derivative) has a long expiration date, i.e., two to five years instead of nine months. They are publicly traded options, and can be bought and sold on organized stock exchanges and over the counter (OTC). LEAPS are technically the like of short term options. But they offer long term investors the opportunity to pursue a long term strategy without merely combining short term options and also without having to purchase the underlying assets.

LEAPS options have expiration dates up to 39 months into the future. The expiration dates for LEAPS on stocks are always in January every year.