When do U.S. stock options settle and expire?

Spread positions can have unique expiration risks associated with them. In the case of U.S. securities options, the OCC will automatically exercise option contracts at expiration only if the option is In-the-Money by $0.01 or greater. If both legs of your expiring option spread are In-the-Money, then the long leg will be auto exercised by the OCC and the short may be assigned. It is possible that a short expiring option leg that finishes In-the-Money is lapsed by the owner and you will not be assigned. For non-U.S. options, please refer to the…

Weekly Class SPXW options are PM settled and expire on Friday, at 16:00 Eastern. There are monthly Class SPX options that stop trading on Thursday evening, and are settled to the opening on Friday. Those are the options that would expire on the 3rd Friday of the month…

The processing of exercise notices for American style options on days other than the expiration date is not performed on a real-time basis, but rather as part of a nightly batch process by the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC). The processing sequence, which by definition results in a notification lag of at least one day to the assigned client, is as follows: …

The price the Options Clearing Corporation uses to determine if an option is in-the-money or out-of-the-money at expiration is not the Last Sale at any one specific exchange or market center, but rather a Composite Close price (see OCC Memo 39744…