Don't believe everything you read,including what I said.. Check with your clearing agent. I know for a fact that you are wrong...
What I posted here are rules from official organizations and regulatory bodies regarding exercising options and my own personal experience. Perhaps you can show us a case where the institutions can have until 7 or 8:00 PM EST to exercise options according to prices in ATH trading to prove your "facts".
I believe the rule requires the member clearing firm to file any early exercise, exception or Do not exercise on expiration by 5:30pm est to the OCC through electronic transmission. Because there is always a process in place at the clearing broker, the customer must submit that well before that time, to give the clearing broker time to review and submit these. When I was a MM and cleared GSEC, the latest they would except this is 5pm est. When it was the day before X-DIV, 4:30pm est and it required a different hand written form that required a phone call to confirm receipt. IMO, there is no process in place after 5:30pm est, even at a self clearing BD with a trade desk.
I have exercised up until 5... I'll put you on touch with the head of derivatives at Goldman.Im sure he will be more than happy to clear up any confusion
5:00 PM is fine. That's within FINRA's requirement. But 7 or 8?!! That's far-fetched. I don't care if it's Goldman Sachs. That's just not possible. FINRA, the regulatory body that regulates the entire industry says that it requires its members to submit exercise instructions by 5:30 PM EST. How can they still submit exercise requests by 8 PM?!!