I think it's complicated, there is some theta decay but it's smoothed by volatility, so the weekend feels like if it is priced in.
Sure, but margin permitting, one can be assigned a long/short in profit, on expiration of a long itm. I think early assignments it's a risk for losing trades only, because that would be a short option with the buyer exercising early.
early exercising is a defensive move for long holders: it's to avoid losses either in dividends, borrow, or carry.
I didn't mean to say that sellers are doing the early excercise, but receiving it with a loss when buyer does it. As a continuation to a reply to this:
In the assignment, you are the seller. You don’t control if and when. I got early assignment from time to time when there was a bad news and underlying drops, from 2 weeks to 2 months ahead of expiration.
The underlying's price finishing between the strikes would impact the spread the same whether it's cash-settled or settlement with physical delivery provided that the trades to close the physically delivered assets happen at the same time then it would be no different whether it's cash-settled or physically settled or not. Like I said, physical delivery of assets is needed for options on physical assets that cannot be all resolved by just cash settlement. Whatever risks that come with trading options with physical delivery would need to be managed by the trader. That's part of the challenge of trading options.
It's completely different if you read my first post. In cash settled you can only lose the difference. In non cash settled you can get assigned un-protected and get in a world of hurt premarket before you get a chance to liquidate your margin call. It's not a "part of the challenge" of trading options lol...you make it sound like it takes some sort of skill not to get wrecked...its like owning a dog that bites and telling everyone oh well, he's just being a dog. Also, you mention it must be managed by the trader? Yeah you are forced to close prematurely, or take some other action to avoid or hedge the impending assignment and margin call. That's not managing..that's panic selling.