I thought you would get the answer by yourself by reading the article but you need to be told word by word: To your question - How soon can we know if the option would be assigned or not (my broker is IB)? Assuming that you are writing options: If the option is an American option, the buyers can exercise it anytime, which means you can get assigned any time until expiration. If the option is European the buyer will have to wait until expiration to exercise it, therefore you only can get assigned at expiration. Having said that people normally exercise options when they are ITM, there's no point in exercising one that is OTM. Particularly with IB there is a section under Account management called "Option Excercise" where you can see more details about your trade. Don't like yourself that much if you are asking such a newbie question.
Thanks for your reply. Although unfortunately it just confirm you don't quite understand the question you tried to answer. We are talking about an option that already expired. No matter what style it is, we already know its moneyness. If you still want to argue, just tell me what would be different if the option were European?
Dude... The option in question expired in the money. And not by one or two cents. Brokers automatically exercise ITM options, unless the account holder explicitly instructs them not. And in this case, it would be completely irrational to instruct the broker not to exercise. The real question from the original post was: How could this possibly happen? Why would such an option not get exercised? And the answer, provided by @destriero is: The option will in fact be exercised. You just haven't been notified yet.
If you ask that question then you answer does make sense. But he didn't ask that question. So as I said have fun, I am out.
Unfortunately, the options were never exercised and I did see my portfolio with 1k stock more than expected. I sold most of them today and they did bring me losses. I got following message from IB: These are American style options and a long holder can lapse (do not exercise) an option. The matching is done randomly by the OCC.
The story has changed enough times that I question the authenticity. I suspect the OP needs a pet for companionship.
Why is it unfortunate the options were never exercised? You don't want short options to be exercised. In your case you got an extra $2,620 due to the options not being exercised. 10 contracts x 100 x $2.62 ITM = $2,620
because my portfolio is no more delta neutral and the extra 1000 stock gave me loss 1000x(450-455)=-5000