1. How are stock options exercised and settled?

The vast majority of exercises are automatically carried out based on the closing settlement price on the contract expiration date. If you, as the option purchaser, need to exercise early or waive your rights to exercise, please refer to [How can I early exercise options or waive my exercise rights].

As the option purchaser, if the option is out of the money on the expiration date, the expired option will have no value and there will be no exercise taken place; if the moneyness of the option is equal to or higher than $0.01, the option will be automatically exercised, which will be completed in the form of a physical delivery.

As the option seller, when the option is exercised by the purchaser, the option clearing house will randomly match the open short position with the exercised option. If your account is assigned, you must either deliver the underlying stock (in case of a call option) or buy the underlying stock (in case of a put option).

Generally speaking, in-the-money options are exercised when they expire. If you are short an in-the-money option on the expiry date, you will most likely be assigned. The purchaser may also choose to waive the exercise rights or early exercise the option regardless of the actual moneyness.

 

2. How can I early exercise options or waive my exercise rights?

Generally speaking, it is less profitable to early exercise than to sell out of the position. It is usually not recommended to exercise the option early because you're forfeiting the remaining time value of the option. However, when the option is deep in-the-money, there will be very little time value left; coupled with poor liquidity, it may not be possible to close the position at a reasonable price. In such cases, investors may choose to exercise the option early. Another reason for investors to early exercise is when investors exercise the relevant call options before the ex-dividend date in order to obtain dividends from the underlying shares.

To exercise options in the moomoo app:

Go to the Accounts tab > Tap an Account > More > Option Exercise

Select the option and the number of contracts you'd like to exercise

Note: To exercise an option successfully, please ensure you have enough funds or shares of the stock in your account beforehand.

 

3. What happens after an option is exercised?

3.1 Total Assets

When you want to exercise an option, your total assets may change after the option is exercised as it can lead to either buying (long) or selling (short) stock. Your total assets will be recalculated based on this trade as follows:

New Total Assets = Previous Total Assets + Stock Market Value from Option Exercise + Cash Received or Paid for Stock Trade – Option Premium

● Stock Market Value from Option Exercise: The market value of shares obtained through the option exercise, calculated as Share Quantity * Current Stock Price.

● Cash Received or Paid for Stock Trade: The cash you receive from selling the underlying shares or the amount you pay to buy the underlying shares at the strike price, calculated as Share Quantity * Strike Price.

● Option Premium: The current value of the option contracts you hold, calculated as Current Option Price * Contract Multiplier * Contract Quantity.

Example

Suppose your Previous Total Assets before the option exercise is $50,000 USD, and you are about to exercise a call option on Stock XYZ (current option premium: $1,000 USD) at a strike price of $230 USD when its current price is $250 USD.

According to the calculation formula above, after the option exercise your New Total Assets will be:

New Total Assets = $50,000 + (100 * $250) – (100 * $230) – $1,000 = $51,000 USD

3.2 Cost Basis

After an option is exercised, your cost basis may be temporarily affected. It usually takes one business day to recalculate and adjust the cost basis for the underlying stock to reflect the cost of the option premium before the option is exercised. As a result, your profit/loss (P/L) data may be slightly higher than the actual value for a while. After one business day, the P/L data will return to normal.

 

4. Are there any fees associated with an option exercise?

We do not charge any fees for exercising call options. To exercise put options, we charge a commission of $0.00016 USD * Share Quantity.

The fee for exercising a put option contract (Contract Multiplier: 100) is $0.016 USD.

 

5. Is it possible that the exercise will not be successful?

Moomoo Canada currently does not support short selling of non-shortable stock. If you have in-the-money options that will lead to short positions in such non-shortable stock after exercise, you need to either close these option positions (either by selling or buying back) before the contract expiration day or make sure your account have enough stocks for settlement. Otherwise, Moomoo reserves the right to liquidate these options.

 

6. Why is the margin requirement higher for close-to-expiry options?

Close-to-Expiry options are options that are within 5 trading days to expiry.

Generally at expiry, your option position may undergo the following changes:

● When you have a long call position that is exercised, it will become a long position of the underlying stock, and the account will deduct the cash required to establish the position.

● When you have a long put position that is exercised, it will become a short position of the underlying stock, and the account will increase the amount of cash corresponding to the short position.

● When you have a short call position that is assigned, it will become a short position of the underlying stock, and the account will increase the amount of cash corresponding to the short position.

● When you have a short put position that is assigned, it will become a long position of the underlying stock, and the account will deduct the cash required to establish the position.

To better monitor the risks associated with the possible option exercises on the expiration day, Moomoo Canada begins to calculate the margin and settlement requirements for options that are in-the-money or close to in-the-money on the day of expiration. Not having enough funds for the potential exercise, will lead to the account being marked as "dangerous" from a risk control perspective. Customers should ensure the account has sufficient liquidity for option exercise via closing positions or injecting more funds.

In the case that your account is marked as "dangerous", Moomoo Canada reserves the right to perform the following actions: 1) liquidate your option positions; 2) waive your right to option exercises; 3) execute the option exercise but close the corresponding stock positions afterwards, etc.

 

7. How to calculate the amount of funds required to exercise an option?

Assume that the customer holds an option position FUTU 210514 150C, and there is no other positions or excess cash. On the expiration date, the underlying price of FUTU is $200. Assuming that the option has no time value, then the value of the client's option holding at this moment is: (current price - exercise price) * contract size * number of positions = ($200 - $150) * 100 * 1 = $5000. The client's equity loan value (ELV) = initial margin requirement (IM) = $5000, where all of the ELV comes from the option holding.

Exercising this in-the-money option at expiry means that the value of the option goes to zero, and correspondingly a position of the underlying stock is opened at the exercise price.

In the above example, the option value of $5,000 goes to zero, and 100 shares of FUTU are bought at a price of $150, therefore:

● The account will have a cash amount of -100 * $150 = -$15,000, and a market value of 100 * $200 = $20000

● The account ELV remains unchanged before and after the exercise, which is still $20,000 - $15,000 = $5,000

● The initial margin requirement has changed from $5,000 for a single option to the initial margin requirement for 100 shares of the underlying stock, which is $20,000 * 50% = $10,000 (assuming the stock margin requirement is 50%).

Because of this increase in the margin requirement, the account is deemed "insufficient" in funds needed for the exercise.

Therefore, the client needs to supply the shortfall here which is $10,000 - $5,000 = $5,000 in order to ensure a successful option exercise.

 

8. Why are my option orders cancelled in certain cases?

If you have an unfilled close-to-expiry option order on the day of contract expiration, Moomoo Canada will calculate the margin required for the exercise and settlement of the option assuming the order is filled. If the account becomes risky, Moomoo Canada reserves the right to cancel such orders.

Usually, when a close-to-expiry option order is cancelled, it may be because you submitted the order before the expiration risk control was running, but that pending order has subsequently triggered the relevant alarms as time moves closer to market close.