Vertical spreads, notional value, and risk management

[Soon2Bgreat]

Quote from jimmyjazz:

Understood. My question remains, would a broker typically force me to take delivery of shares on an ITM short put that is suddenly exercised EARLY if I also hold an ITM short put at a different strike? Or would a broker typically just net out the trade by simultaneously exercising my long put (with an additional cash transaction)?

Similar question on early exercise of short ITM calls.

You would get the shares, your broker wouldn't early exercise a long put for you. There's no auto early exercise like there is an auto exercise at expiration. If it was optimal to exercise early, then you should have done so on your long itm put (I'm assuming you meant you held a long itm put at another strike, even though you wrote short). That's the point I was trying to make in my first post - early exercise risk isn't only a problem for the shorts.

Same thing for calls.

It sounds like your questions have mainly been about when to exercise early, and procedures for assignment at expiration. There's a lot of different scenarios that can come up, so it's important to look into these so you know how it'll affect your account (there are also margin considerations).

 

[jimmyjazz]

Yes, thanks for the correction. You have answered my question clearly. I need to contact my broker to find out how I would best handle early exercise on short puts and calls.

Honestly, what I'm most worried about is any event that could net out me taking a bigger loss than what was nominally risked on the trade. I'm thinking black swan, etc. In the end, is the loss on a spread (credit or debit) TRULY limited to what is shown on a P/L chart, or can it go much farther south than that when the shit hits the fan? My expectation is that the long leg will have value in those events, as long as there is time and liquidity to exercise, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

 

[Georgi90]

Quote from jimmyjazz:

Yes, thanks for the correction. You have answered my question clearly. I need to contact my broker to find out how I would best handle early exercise on short puts and calls.

Honestly, what I'm most worried about is any event that could net out me taking a bigger loss than what was nominally risked on the trade. I'm thinking black swan, etc. In the end, is the loss on a spread (credit or debit) TRULY limited to what is shown on a P/L chart, or can it go much farther south than that when the shit hits the fan? My expectation is that the long leg will have value in those events, as long as there is time and liquidity to exercise, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

jimmy .... jimmy ....
In the event of black swan or something where both legs go itm, you have two choises. 1 sell to close the whole spread for a profit (debit spread) , and 2. your short leg get assigned and you order your broker to exercise the long leg netting out the position.
Whatever the case, in a debit or credit spread your loss is limited by what is shown on the pnl graph

 

[jimmyjazz]

Thanks.