# Rights, obligations and expiration

**OPT-F02 · Core Options · Beginner**

**Lesson question:** How can an option become shares, cash or another position?

Original fictional examples; educational writing, not live market data, orders or production approval.

## By the end

- Explain the mechanism in the lesson question.
- Reproduce the worked comparison and recognize its failure case.

**Prerequisites:** OPT-F01

Opening, closing, exercise and assignment are different events. A holder owns a right; a writer accepts an obligation if assigned. Expiration is a contract event, not a universal automatic close button.

The exact product determines whether settlement involves shares, cash or, for some options, futures. Read exercise style and settlement method separately.

## Understand the mechanism

American-style rights can be exercised before expiry; European-style exercise is restricted by the contract. Standard equity call exercise involves buying the deliverable at the strike, while put exercise involves selling it. A short call can require delivery, and a short put can require purchase.

An option near the strike can change status late in the session. Broker instructions and deadlines matter. Dividend-related economics can make early call exercise relevant. This course does not prescribe one universal broker cutoff or assignment probability.

## Walk through the process

Before holding a short contract near expiry, describe the resulting position if assigned. Confirm funding, stock delivery, borrow and any protection. A separate long wing does not automatically exercise merely because that would make a diagram tidy.

Closing offsets the original option in the market. Exercising a long can discard remaining extrinsic value, so compare the economic alternatives rather than treating exercise as the normal way to realize every gain.

## A worked example

Sell one fictional 95 put for 2.00. Assignment requires buying 100 shares for 9,500. If they are worth 90, their market value is 9,000. The economic history is 9,000−9,500+200=−300 before costs.

The premium does not change the contractual strike payment. It is a separate cash flow. Buying the put back before assignment instead uses the option's executable closing price and ends the obligation.

## Graph: Rights, obligations and expiration—worked comparison

**Horizontal:** Illustrative observation  
**Vertical:** Example value

Fictional data from the written example. The chart organizes the comparison; its shape is not a forecast.

Complete numerical data are embedded in `scripts/options-strategies/OPT-F02.js` and displayed as an accessible table in the HTML lesson.

## What would invalidate the reading?

A trader calls the put an income coupon without planning to fund shares. Forced liquidation can produce a different path from the terminal diagram. The long wing of a spread is not an automatic operational repair.

## Check your understanding

### What stock transaction follows assignment of one standard 95 short put?

**Answer:** Buy 100 shares for 9,500.

**Why:** The earlier premium changes economics, not the contract strike.

### What is the critical failure to avoid?

**Answer:** A trader calls the put an income coupon without planning to fund shares. Forced liquidation can produce a different path from the terminal diagram. The long wing of a spread is not an automatic operational repair.

**Why:** Explain this risk before treating the example as a decision rule. A correct calculation does not guarantee a favorable market outcome. **Critical risk check.**

## Takeaway

Return to the question: How can an option become shares, cash or another position? State the observed facts, the assumptions and the failure condition separately.

## References and provenance

The cited references support definitions and conventions. The teaching prose, tickets and numerical scenarios are original; they are not attributed as historical market observations.

- [OCC Equity Options specifications](https://www.theocc.com/clearance-and-settlement/clearing/equity-options-product-specifications)

- [OCC Options Disclosure Document](https://www.theocc.com/company-information/documents-and-archives/options-disclosure-document)