What is the "390 Professional Orders Rule"?

The "390 Professional Orders Rule" refers to regulations established by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning professional trading at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Under these regulations, clients who execute more than an average of 390 option orders per day within a calendar month will be classified as "professional customers" for the subsequent quarter.

For instance, assuming each month consists of 20 trading days, a client must not place a total of 7,800 orders for U.S. stock options in a single month (calculated as 390 orders×20 trading days). If a client reaches the average of 390 option orders in February, the client will be designated as a professional customer starting on 1st April and continuing through 30th June. Clients labeled as “professional customer” will be restricted from placing any options orders—except for liquidating existing positions—for the remainder of that month and into the next quarter.

An option order is counted as a single order if it is submitted as any one of the following types:

- Single-leg orders

- Complex orders comprising multiple legs

- Cancel and replace

- Pegged orders

Please note that all submitted options orders are counted towards the threshold, regardless of whether they are filled, rejected, or canceled.

Clients whose accounts reach 50% of the monthly options order limit (i.e., 3,900 orders) will receive a reminder notification. At this point, they can monitor their used and remaining options order quota for the current month via the order page on the APP and QT platform.

If an account reaches 75% of the monthly options order limit (5,850 orders), a reminder notification will also be issued.

Upon reaching 90% of the monthly options order limit (7,020 orders), clients will receive reminder notification and only be permitted to liquidate their options positions for the remainder of the month.

Once an account hits 100% of the monthly options order limit (7,800 orders), the client will receive reminder notification and will be classified as a professional customer. This rule aims to identify professional customers who compete with market makers, and the professional customers’ orders should not receive priority over retail clients' orders. For this reason, accounts labeled as “professional customers” require special order handling procedures, which Webull does not currently support. Therefore, clients labeled as “professional customer” will be restricted from placing any options orders—except for liquidating existing positions—for the remainder of that month and into the next quarter. This restriction will be lifted in the following quarter.

For further details on the 390 professional order rules, please refer to the SEC release document:

https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/c2/2016/34-78187.pdf