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How to Get option prices of first and expiry date alone

On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 10:18 +0530, Subramanian S wrote:
Your subject "Get option prices of first and expiry date alone" doesn't
seem to match the rest of your email.

To deal with your subject, I would simply extract the dates of the
'first' and 'expiry' from your instrument metadata, then look up these
dates in your data.  On the first day a derivatives contract is
available to trade, you'll often find no trades or extremely wide
markets, or both, so I question the *premise* of your subject.
or
C) deal with the fact that real data aren't synchronized, are messy, and
don't match the textbook examples the vast majority of the time.

I plot and backtest data with missing values all the time, because that
is how real financial data works.  If you're trying to create a trading
system, you need to account for the structure of real data.
Now, if we wanted to connect the subject of your email to the rest of
your email.... 

I could propose an example: 

Strategy Idea:
I have multiple option series, and I'm interested in figuring out 
if I should buy that option on the first day it is available for 
trade, and at what price.
Problem:
data is messy, and is often missing values on that first day
Opportunity:
use the prices from other more liquid options, plus decay,
to establish a theoretical price for every other option
Task:
build a trading system that uses the *implied* price to 
buy options on the first day, see if we make money at expiry.

Or something like that...

Regards,

   - Brian