Another way , I learn.. only the hard way. i had a bear call spread with OPEN TABLE.. 85 to 90.. i had sold it for 1.50.. the Q%#@%%@ went up from 83 to 93.. i was under water . my bad. i lost 3.50.. so i thought....on friday it was above 92. when i saw.. then I did not look at it. my bad.. close to end of Friday, it went under 90.. now in an IRA. i cant therotically keep a short call. the bastards tradking. mofos. should have closed the entire spread. but they did not.. they closed the short call. and left the long call open the @$@#%$ closed at 90.04.. then this got assigned. now on Tues. the Mofo OPEN. . i was long 100 shares .and it plunged 2.5 more.. baah... i closed it for a further 260 loss... all i can say. is.. kick myself.. in the !$##$%... learn learn. when u have spreads .pay @#@%$% attention to what happens. on expiration...
well yeah you do need to pay attention to your positions but sounds like you have a pretty good case to make a complaint about the way your account was handled. it appears their actions cost you the price to buy back the short call plus the loss you took when you closed out your assigned position while if they had done nothing or closed out your spread then you wouldn't have lost as much. I'm not familiar with the firm you use but if it were me I'd call and complain
another warning i got is.. if u r itm and u DONT want the option. u need to call before 4 pm ET .. or else it will auto assign. also. the reverse. if u have a OTM option and say u want it.. like OPEN closed at 90.04 and u have a put . of 90. which is not ITM at close. i had heard u have till 530pm ET to cal and get it exercised. TRADEKING guy told me there are no guarantees. u need to call at 4-pm lines may be busy. who the hell knows... so much for that strategy of holding those options and then reacting to after hours Fri. i have a regular IB account where I do all my trades and I had a lot . on Fri to monitor. . this was a seperate IRA acct. which I forgot to recheck on Fri. my bad.
You should have read that booklet they send you when you asked for options capability. Anyhow here is the link, in the the event you misplaced the copy. http://www.optionsclearing.com/about/publications/character-risks.jsp
yeah, the part about choosing to exercise an OTM position or not exercising an ITM position is correct. However what I was getting as is that both sides of your spread were ITM and would have auto exercised leaving you with a flat position but their decision to break up your spread cost you money on both the purchase of the call and the liquidation of the assigned stock. did getting auto exercised on the long calls cause you to overspend your IRA? Basically they speculated that only one side of your spread would finish ITM but they were wrong and it was to your detriment.
I don't think broker did anything wrong. How would they know that you wanted the long call closed? Should they just assume you wanted it closed? I think not. If they closed your long call and the stock went up on Monday you might complain that they cost you money. IMHO, it's not reasonable to ask a broker to cope with your hedging strategies. Don
IMHO your IRA is one of the best places to day trade. No worries about tax reporting, wash sales, etc. If you lose money I don't see the difference if it happens in your IRA or in a non-IRA account. The critical factor is don't gamble if you can't afford to lose.
I don't know many folks who can afford to lose their retirement savings. But you might have wealthier friends than I.