what time is it on the 21st that it expires? At 4:00 eastern (close of market)? Or some earlier time? Thanks.
If you're referring to the US option market, they expire at market close, whether it's 4 pm ET or 1 pm ET (half trading days). For stocks only, not indexes nor ETF.
Thank you rb7! Yes indeed, U.S. stock options. So its 4pm ET unless the market is a short trading day for a holiday or whatever, then its 1pm ET. Got it. Thanks!
With TDA, it can still be manually exercised until 5 pm EST and might be exercised until 5:30 pm if they can still make it happen (no guarantee). Someone posted in another thread that the big boys can exercise at times later than these posted here. Check with your broker.
Wow like if you are big time player they might let you exercise even after the small guys are cut off from exercising? Wholly crap if so, that would have to violate some kind of rules or laws or something!
Seriously??? Perhaps rethinking your sense of outrage about perfectly normal business dynamics is in order. You know how a supermarket doesn't shove their employees out the door immediately after closing time? Because... you know... there might be work to do after the customers leave? Should there be "some kind of rules or laws or something" about forcing them to do so? Those settlement periods after the market closes actually have a specific reason for existing. If you think about the name for a bit, that reason may become apparent. And no, there's no law against it.
Options DO NOT expire at market close. They may stop trading then, but they do not expire. You have until 530pm et ( or 1.5 hours after the market close) (most brokers will have an earlier cutoff time to meet this deadline) to exercise an out of the money option or cancel and automatic exercise of an in the money one.
OP asked when the stock options expire, not when they get exercised. Expire = stop trading. When they expire, they can either get exercised, or expire worthless. The exercising action is taken place after the expiration of options.
Expire is not equal to stop trading. When something expires it is then worthless and can't be used. I think it is important to make this distinction to the OP. Even after options stop trading, they can still be used. They are still there and have risk/opportunity depending on whether you are short/long them.