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This is just a question for everyone who has ever sold options? Have you guys ever been assigned? Meaning your counter party to your short options have exercised and you have to deliver shares. In my experience, it has happened to me only once when I was testing out some dividend capture strategy, where I sold some options on a ticker that paid out 10% dividend after ex-dividend date; thinking there might be a chance my counter-party might not exercise and the short call will be worthless after the ticker pays the dividend. Sure enough, like clockwork, my counterparty exercised and my strategy failed. There was another time when I decided to be "smart" and sold a naked strangle against an expiring biotech ticker whose FDA approval decision was suppose to come out at 5:30pm on expiration date. I figured that I was being "smart" since IV was huge, like 150 and the stock was halted while FDA committee was convening. So there would be no movement and none of the strangle would be assigned automatically unless my counterparty wanted to make a bet by 4:00pm which way the committee was going to vote and exercise one of his/her put or call. Luckily, my counterparty decided to not to take the bet and I collected the premium. But I decided that I'd never do that again, as I was nervously following the FDA live meeting and not being able to do anything as everything was halted. Also, Mikael, isn't your NFLX example a good thing? I mean besides having to come up with 260K margin on a weekend, the guy is basically sacrificing his time-value on his option; so assuming NFLX stays flat from Friday to Monday (big assumption I know), you can basically just go to the open market buy NFLX at 250 and sell it to him at 260, making 4% in the process and get out of your position? I think you could call on your wealth friends/relatives and ask them if they'd like to lend out a high interest and extremely short-term loan. Micahjw, for my specific NFLX trade, here are my thoughts, - NFLX had just reported earnings; so on the volatility charts, its IV has been crushed while 30 day historical vol is also at a lull. If you read the explainations on Kim's threads on his IBM and GS trade. Basically he is working on the assumption that IBM and GS will be boring for the time period of his short calendar spread, not move around much; so you get to collect insurance premium. At the same time, he is hoping that his longer dated option which contains the next earnings report date for IBM will slowly rise during the course of the trade. - NFLX has no significant catalyst for next week, as far as I know. So I'm hoping that it'll be boring. At the same time, I'm hoping since IV on the options are at a low, that it'll slowly rise and my longer-dated option will rise. - I plotted out my P&L graph on Think or Swim Analyze tab; to see where my P&L will be on expiration day or several days before it, and how much it'll vary as the price of NFLX moved around. I always go to the edge of the P&L chart to see what my max. loss and set my position allocation to 10%. I highly recommend anyone to plot out their P&L graph on their options trade and play around with scenario, say next week on a Wednesday, what'd happen if NFLX is up 5% or down 10% from the current price, to my spread? It'd give you a feel for your trade in advance instead of playing Monday Quarterback the day of a big move. - I also make a note where my break-even point is, my peak point where my profit is, which is at the strike of my double calendar or the 'tent poles' of the double calendar tent, 245 and 265. - Now the most important thing IMO, is plan for adjustment. I work on the assumption that I'm not very smart and just entered a bad trade. So I need to have a plan in place to adjust to protect myself from myself. My plan for adjustment is when NFLX hits is about half-way or 2/3 way near my tent-poles, so say at 263-264 or 248-247. I have to move my tent-poles in such a way that the current NFLX price sits comfortably in the middle of my tent, - Example let's say NFLX spikes up on Monday/Tuesday to 263.5 or more, then I'll have to sell my half of my NFLX 245 put spread (since the price has moved so far out of that tent pole) and open the equivalent number of contracts at NFLX 270 contracts. I'll take a loss on that sell but I have also extended my breathing room. - Vice versa, NFLX spikes down on Tuesday to 248; I'll have to sell half of my NFLX 265 call spread and open up the equivalent size of NFLX 240 put spread. - You can play around with all of these scenario's with the ToS analytics or whatever other option analytics software to get a feel of how much your P&L will take a hit on an adjustment vs. how much more breathing room you get from it by adjusting the day step on the tool and also set a price slice. - Everytime I adjust I take a realized loss and have less potential max. profit; but I'd rather flee and live to fight another day. - Perhaps the visuals and scenario's presented in this video by Dan Sheridan would help instead of my text in how to adjust. https://www.tradeking.com/education/videos/adjusting-calendar-spreads; just skip the first half as he goes through some really basic stuff, Anyways these are my thoughts, others may and probably have better ideas than me. So please correct my incorrect thinking or feel free to add anything else, Best, PC