Where can I buy European-style options?
On the US markets, most index options are European style.  Most stock and ETF options are, as you noted, American style.
American options (like those on ADBE) can be exercised by the holder anytime before expiration. They will be exercised automatically at expiration if they are in the money. However, if there is still time before expiration (as in this case), and they are not extremely in the money, there is probably extrinsic value to the option, and you should sell it, not exercise it. European options are only automatically exercised at expiration, and only if they are in the money. These are usually cash settled on products like SPX or VIX. They can not be exercised before expiration, but can be sold anytime. "Hmm, that doesn't quite answer my question -- sorry if I was unclear. Let me try rephrasing:  Here's what I'm asking: is the Black-Scholes equation derived using martingale pricing methods (e.g. Girsanov's theorem, the Martingale Representation Theorem, and so on) *equivalent* to the equation derived using the method in the 1973 paper, e.g. constructing a risk-less portfolio and eliminating the drift term? I was led to believe that both of these approaches *lead to the same result*.  I agree that there's an enormous difference between ""equilibrium"" and ""arbitrage free"" *term structure models*; I'm just not convinced that this is a meaningful difference in the case where market completeness holds, e.g. European equity options.   As you correctly said, it's generally impossible to parameterise a Vasicek model to get it to match the observed term structure, while this is something that can be readily done with a Hull-White / Ho-Lee / Libor Market Model. Hence, the prices you get from a Vasicek will obviously be different from what you get using a Hull-White (since you won't be able to match the initial term structure). But such a difference doesn't hold with a Black-Scholes equation derived using martingale vs. the original method.  Sorry if this sounds nitpicky; I just want to make sure I'm understanding these concepts correctly.  EDIT: Added italics." &gt;Corporate taxes as a percentage of federal revenue declined from 27.3 percent in 1955 to 8.9 percent in 2010  If the federal government adds a European-style VAT tax, that would also greatly decrease corporate taxes as a percentage of federal revenue, but it would be because there's more taxes coming in from other sources.   Federal income taxes in the United States didn't even *exist* until 1913.  Percentage of federal income goes down as income from other sources go up.  The United States [currently has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/30/us-corporate-tax-rate_n_1392310.html). "I believe you are missing a complete aspect of figuring out price points. You completely disregarded how price affects ""perceived quality"". People generally assume that higher price means higher quality. Pricing too low will give many people the impression that at that price it couldn't be very good, and don't buy the product as a result.  Crown Royal became Crown Royal after being a mediocre brand. They didn't change the way they made whiskey, instead they raised the price by 400%. Now it was viewed as a premium product, simply because of it's price.  While I don't want to knock your view of Tycoon games, but it's just a game with one point of view. It's not the real world. It's just what a programmer thought would make the game interesting. I sure wouldn't consider it to be some source of great business wisdom.  Look at what really happens taking video game consoles and games as an example. They start at a high price point. This makes it prestigious to own. When that price point becomes saturated, meaning everyone that is going to buy at the price already has, they lower the price a little and do the same. Then when everyone that can afford that price has bought one they lower it again. Eventually it gets to a point where almost anyone can afford.  This style taps the market for every price point and is much better model than the one you suggest. There are many things that use this model, like car sales. The end of a model year is the time to buy because everyone that was willing to pay the full price already had and they need to move them off the lot to make room for new cars that will have a higher price point.  So I don't buy into your theory at all.  EDIT: Grammatical error." You can look into specific market targeted mutual funds or ETF's. For Norway, for example, look at NORW. If you want to purchase specific stocks, then you'd better be ready to trade on local stock exchanges in local currency. ETrade allows trading on some of the international stock exchanges (in Asia they have Hong Kong and Japan, in Europe they have the UK, Germany and France, and in the Americas they have the US and Canada). Some of the companies you're interested in might be trading there. Your maximum risk is 100%. If you buy the stock 15% off and your company goes bankrupt tomorrow, you've lost everything. It also sounds like you have foreign exchange risk. One can debate how much risk this is in terms of expected outcomes, but that was not your question. However, if you purchase the company stock and buy put options at the same time, you can lock in a sale price ahead of time and absolutely limit your risk. Depending on the amount of stock we're talking about, you can buy currency futures as well to hedge the exchange risk. You don't necessarily have to buy the break-even strikes, you can buy the ones that guarantee a positive return. These are probably fairly cheap.  Note that a lot of companies have policies that prohibit beneficiaries from shorting the company stocks, in which case you might not be able to hedge yourself with put options. SPX options are cash settled European style.  You cannot exercise European style options before the expiration date.  Assuming it is the day of expiration and you own 2,000 strike puts and the index settlement value is 1,950 - you would exercise and receive cash for the in the money amount times the contract multiplier.  If instead you owned put options on the S&amp;P 500 SPDR ETF (symbol SPY) those are American style, physically settled options.  You can exercise a long American style option anytime between when your purchase it and when it expires.    If you exercised SPY puts without owning shares of SPY you would end up short stock at the strike price. Yes. If I own a call, an American call option can be exercised at my wish. A European call can only be exercised at expiration, by the way.  Your broker doesn't give you anything but a current quote for a given strike price. There are a number of good option related questions here. A bit of searching and reading will help you understand the process.