Quote from uptickk:
Closing price on OEX is determined at 3:02, check. Owners have until 3:20 to decide if they want to exercise, check. It is my understanding that with cash settled options, that the âsettlement amount is the difference between the exercise-settlement value and the exercise price of the optionâ per the cboe website. To me this means that if you are short a 490 call when the market at 3:02 is at 500, that your 10 points OTM. Let say a bomb hits NYC, as in your example, between 3:02 and 3:20 and the Sp500 futures tank. Why would the payout to the long call owner change? I thought that was part of the beauty of cash settled options . . . Am I missing something here (I very well might be)?
I can't tell from your post what the confusion might be. Though, the 490 calls with cash closing at 500 are 10 points ITM, not OTM. This means that the owners of the 490 calls may cash in that $10 at any time before 3:20. Typically they wouldn't this, since the 490 call premium would have vol value on top of intrinsic value. Let's say that the NYC bomb drives spu futures down 30 points. That would equate to somewhere between 10 and 15 points in the sp100 index. If the sp100 index is now priced at 485 from that drop, the 490 calls will definitely be worth less than $10, resulting in astute owners exercising their options. (As far as I know, there is no other early exercise that works this way.) Therefore the owners of the OEX 490 calls will exercise their options, effectively cashing them in for $10, as these contracts will be worth far less than $10 by the open.
Let's say you are short 10 OEX 490 calls in your position. If 100% of the OEX 490 calls get exercised in this situation, you will be assigned on all 10 your short calls, forcing you to effectively buy back your shorts for $10 per option. If the options open the next morning for $3, you will have lost $7 over 10 contracts, or $7 thousand on the OEX early exercise risk.