I have a European Style IC on NDX expiring Friday, but it is AM settled. I've searched and read up on what that means, but I can't parse out what the risk is to me. I've read that the last trade will take place Thursday evening, but the settlement price will be whatever the price is at open on Friday. I am well OTM on both sides right now, but I'm trying to plan in advance whether I need to exit early or not.
So, am I to assume that if I am OTM on Thursday night, and NDX opens outside of one of my shorts, I will have to make up the difference between the underlying open price and my strike?
If so, will I also be able to close the long on that side to collect remaining premium to offset some of the loss? If the last day the option trades is Thursday, that would seem to preclude me from doing that.
I think the normal advice would be to close my positions before the Thursday night close, but I'd prefer not to unless it looks seriously threatened, because with the NDX spreads, it is expensive to close right up until expiration. This seems to fall under what is commonly referred to as Pin risk, but I thought one of the selling points of AM settled was the elimination of Pin risk.
European Style AM settled expiration questions (NDX)
byu/Keizman55 inoptions
Posted by Keizman55
2 Comments
> So, am I to assume that if I am OTM on Thursday night, and NDX opens outside of one of my shorts, I will have to make up the difference between the underlying open price and my strike
I’m going to assume that by “opens outside of one of my shorts” you mean that the AM settlement price of NDX is ITM of one of your IC shorts.
Basically, yes. The Thursday close is no more relevant than the Wednesday close, or any previous day. What matters is the AM settlement price, in terms of assignment and exercise-by-exception for expiring ITM contracts.
In other words, yes, you carry overnight risk by holding an IC through Thursday’s close. So maybe don’t do that.
> If so, will I also be able to close the long on that side to collect remaining premium to offset some of the loss? If the last day the option trades is Thursday, that would seem to preclude me from doing that.
You didn’t say when, but I assume you meant after the AM settlement price is, well, settled. And your guess is correct, there’s no opportunity to make any moves on the position after the Thursday close (barring extended hours on NDX options being added at some point — SPX trades 24×5, so it’s possible.) It’s exactly the same as holding an IC through the close of market on Friday, for a PM settlement, except that you have more time for things to go wrong.
> This seems to fall under what is commonly referred to as Pin risk, but I thought one of the selling points of AM settled was the elimination of Pin risk.
Never heard of AM eliminating pin risk before. Do you have a link?
European style simply means they can only exercise at expiration.
It doesn’t matter if its AM/PM for NDX cause its a cash settled index. There is no pin risk cause its cash settled, not because of the expiration time.