Leaderboard

I didn't see Tradestation mentioned that much in here and figured Id chime in on the platform as it's what I am currently using. Been using TS for over a year. Part of the reason is that they have a special program for military and first responders. Basically, everything is almost free. Including all the futures data like ICE etc. They also dropped the futures contracts to 0.45 cents for that program. However, I will leave that special program out in my review below. The execution has been great. The majority of my limits placed at midprice get filled with price improvements. For example, I rolled a Short Put IWM that was quoted 2.08 and they filled me 1.93. These extra profits add up. If you have a plan and don't need the options graphs. The web-platform and mobile app are really solid. You can easily select your strikes and build your spread manually without using the set strategy options. Just web-platform and mobile app you can get a slightly cheaper commission. If you go the full platform route, slightly higher but competitive. The full platform comes with lots of scanners and that includes scanning options. For example large volume outside of the average and ranked etc. I'm no expert here as I just use the Anchor Trades as I don't need scanning. OptionStation Pro comes with the full platform. It's a nice tool and reminds me a lot of TOS. You can build your graphs with it. I'm sure it's not as powerful as TOS. I don't have much experience with TOS so can't comment. Note: TS/Web platform/mobile app quotes options PnL on last trade price. OptionStation pro will quote at MID price. PROS: The applications and platforms are really good. Easy to put on spreads on the mobile app or even roll your options. Currently, real time market data is free. Including futures Tradingview is linked with Tradestation. Once you log in it activates the futures data to realtime. Execution is great. Never once have I had uptime issues. Always been able to log in. I think their site mentioned the 99% uptime. CONS: Support has really slowed since COVID started. I think they went to a telework status. You can always reach the trade desk, but customer support may have some wait times. TS likes the account representative approach. It's nice I can just email mine directly and they see things get done. I think depending on priority I can get responses quickly or a day later. I don't think they offer portfolio margining. I never asked as I am just not at that point. Accounts are segregated between products. Equity/options is one account number, Futures is another etc. You'll have to xfer funds between the accounts in the back office. No fee for that, but it's not instant either. Assignment / exercise cost is $14.95. That one surprised me when I let some get assigned at expiration. Early assignment is 1.50 per contract (5.95 min) Hope that helps anyone whose curious about TS. Cheers

Take a look: https://www.optionseducation.org/referencelibrary/faq/options-exercise#:~:text=As the holder of an,for receiving an exercise notice. Options exchanges have a cut-off time of 4:30 p.m. CT, for receiving an exercise notice. Be aware that most brokerage firms have an earlier cut-off time for submitting exercise instructions in order to meet exchange deadlines. So options holders cannot exercise their options after hours. In any case, to avoid all the confusion and the "horror stories", we always close our short options before expiration. Trying to save the extra cents simply is not worth the risk.

This scenario has absolutely nothing to do with the stock price, it's simply whether the holder of the option decided to exercise it. For example, if you are short a 100 stike call and whoever you sold it to happens to exercise it then you will have 100 shares of stock that you own sold at a price of $100 per share (the strike), or if you don't own the stock then you'd be short 100 shares at a price of $100 per share - it doesn't matter if the current stock price is $95, $105, $125 or $200, your short strike was 100 so when the option is settled the stock is bought (if short a put) or sold (if short a call) at a price of $100 per share. This is why options are not typically exercised until the time value in them is very small (so the strikes have to be deep in the money) - if people want to cash in on the profit, they'd usually just sell their long option and not exercise it. If people exercise an option that still has a significant amount of time value remaining, they forego that extra value when they exercise it (and this would be to the benefit of whoever sold them that option). Bottom line is that when the owner of the option that you are short decides to exercise it then the settlement price at which the stock is bought or sold is equal to the strike and whatever the closing stock price was that day doesn't matter - and if somebody does exercise when there is a lot of time value remaining in it (I've never been lucky enough to have this happen to me) then they are doing you a favor and giving you all the time value still remaining. If the owner of a long option is dumb enough to exercise it early when the stock price is near the strike price then their broker will still exercise it even if the stock price drops lower during that day or in after-hours trading. Expiration day is a little different in that an OTM stike that becomes ITM in after-hours trading will likely be assigned. This is why we always close short options for a few cents prior to expiration in the official SO trades - it's not worth that after-hours risk to let an option expire for zero instead of closing it for a few cents.

In this case, I believe the option would not be automatically exercised because the stock price closed on Friday below the strike. However, if the stock price moved above the strike in Friday after hours trading it very well could be manually exercised (this is why we will close shorts prior to them expiring), you have no way of knowing if the person who bought the call that you sold exercised it until you check your account to see if it was exercised over the weekend. As for a document, I think you can do google searches and find something.

Whoa ! Thanks, Kim ! I was out all morning, and just got back to my desk to see this, and all the compliments. Thanks, all - I'm grateful for the recognition, but more to the point I'm truly happy that I'm able to be part of such a symbiotic community.

The award for January 2021 goes to our long time mentor @rasar @rasar is with us for over 3 years and his contributions are highly appreciated by members! Thank you!