There is not now nor has there ever been a dividend on GLD and they have never said there will be. If there is, it would likely be considered not an ordinary dividend and it is likely the OCC would adjust the contract.
I was not paying attention to the actual structure, was just responding to the @ajacobson. But if we are going down that road My hypothesis would be that a special div would get adjusted by OCC and he would not get any benefit from due to the strike adjustment. However, if the stock is pinning that specific div level, he’s pretty short early-X gamma too.
Yeah, probably should have quoted @ajacobson's post. I agree that with GLD, any dividend would probably be a special dividend and the contracts would be adjusted. More generally when a company declares an ordinary dividend for the first time there is no adjustment and the long conversion holder would benefit. I just trying to point out that early execution is strictly a positive occurrence (assuming they weren't expecting to receive a dividend). The only downside risk comes from an unexpected dividend cut. There is early-X gamma risk, but that only affects whether the dividend is received as an added bonus. In no case will he earn less than $0.30 on the trade even if he does no further hedging. Ex-dividend, he will either have the entire conversion intact, or he will have received the entire financing premium and be long a (nearly worthless) put. Of course, it'd be a different story if he buys a conversion expecting to receive a dividend that's been priced in.
Sure. I'm assuming an individual investor with spare cash earning next to nothing. Even then there are probably better ways to earn interest.