I agree, no excuse anymore, but until someone big enough makes a stink we are stuck knowing the current rules. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the info you should know, or read an example of someone who got shafted to find out the oddities.
true,its just amazing that an enron type business model has been adopted and there seems to be no shame ,actually a brazen attempt to defend it, as in IB's raping of this guy,or the recent MF global fiasco,nothing done,just a limp attempt at some nothing wrong response
The OP claims he couldn't sell his GOOG 280 calls because of zero on the bid but this ET'r sold his 20 contracts of GOOG 280 calls for $0.15 at 3:53pm. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=771371#post771371
I know the thread is 7 years old and this comment was posted about 1 month ago, but just for reference and to stop this line of attack, the official close of Google at 4:00PM that exp day was 280.30. No after hours funny games were involved at all.
With my IB IRA, I can trade futures with marjin risk, but cannot trade any call spread in which my risk is clearly defined w/o margin risk. I read this is crazy US government regulation and not IB rules. Anyone has more info?
Simplified - It is regulation, not risk. Technically, in a futures account, you put up a performance bond. There is no loan involved. In equities and options, you must have the ability to borrow (margin). You cannot borrow in an IRA account. Jack
the OP should know the rules and inform the firm not to exercise. automatic exercise is based upon the closing price at 4pm. suppose there was a bullish event after 4pm can the holder of the call withdraw his do not exercise notice?
who said they moved the money into the ira account.maybe they took it out of the regular account and transferred it to ib's account.
I remember having received an email from IB lately addressing this problem - they will now deny exercize of options that might result in a margin deficit: http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/1767 IB reserves the right to prohibit the exercise of stock options and/or close short options if the effect of the exercise/assignment would be to place the account in or near margin deficit. While the purchase of an option generally requires no margin since the position is paid in full, once exercised the account holder is obligated to either pay for the ensuing long stock position in full (in the case of a call exercised in a cash account or stock subject to 100% margin) or finance the long/short stock position (in the case of a call/put exercised in a margin account)._ Accounts which do not have sufficient equity on hand prior to exercise introduce undue risk should an adverse price change in the underlying occur upon delivery. This uncollateralized risk can be especially pronounced and may far exceed any in-the-money value the long option may have held, particularly at expiration when clearinghouses automatically exercise options at in-the-money levels as low as $0.01 per share. Take, for example, an account whose equity on Day 1 consists solely of 20 long $50 strike call options in hypothetical stock XYZ which have closed at expiration at $1 per contract with the underlying at $51. Assume under Scenario 1 that the options are all auto-exercised and XYZ opens at $51 on Day 2. Assume under Scenario 2 that the options are all auto-exercised and XYZ opens at $48 on Day 2.
any changes on how this is handled? what is the settlement price on fri for an option, close or 15 minutes after?