A warrant is a security that entitles the holder to buy stock of the company that issued it at a specified price, which is much higher than the stock price at time of issue. Warrants are frequently attached to bonds or preferred stock as a sweetener, allowing the issuer to pay lower interest rates or dividends. Frequently, these warrants are detachable, and can be sold independently of the bond or stock. Warrants are much like call options, but the money goes to the issuer, not an option writer, and it initially has a lifespan of many years. When the warrant is exercised the company issues new shares of stock, so the number of outstanding shares increases. When a call option is exercised, the owner of the call option receives an existing share from an assigned call writer (except in the case of employee stock options, where new shares are created and issued by the company upon exercise). Unlike common stock shares outstanding, warrants do not have voting rights.
Sometimes the issuer will try to establish a market for the warrant and to register it with a listed exchange. In this case, the price can be obtained from a broker. But often, warrants are privately held or not registered, which makes their prices less obvious. Once the warrants are in the secondary market, they can then be traded just like a stock. Warrants can be easily tracked by adding a "w" after the company’s ticker symbol to check the warrant's price.
Duration
Another difference between a warrant and an option is the duration of the contract. A warrant's lifetime is measured in years (as long as 15 years), while options are typically measured in months. Even LEAPS (long-term equity anticipation securities), the longest stock options available, tend to expire in two or three years. Upon expiration, the warrants are worthless if not exercised unless the price of the common stock is greater than the exercised price.
Other differences
In many respects, options and warrants are functionally similar, except that warrants are not standardised like ASX-listed options. While investors can write stock options on the ASX, they are not permitted to do either with ASX-listed warrants, since only companies can issue warrants, and while each option contract is over 100 underlying ordinary shares, the number of warrants that must be exercised by the holder to buy the underlying asset depends on the conversion ratio set out in the offer documentation for the warrant issue.
Nach dieser erklärung also verlieren die Warrants an Wert, sehe ich das richtig???
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