Stock options

You can use other contract options to net the risk, hence the necessary margin. For example, a bull or a bear strategy would require zero margins.

Stock options In-The-Money (ITM) - Execution at the expiring

The Stock options have delivery requirements to be met at the expiring, meaning that in order to be executed and to receive the underlying stocks, the account must reserve the equivalent cost of acquiring the stocks. If this is not matched, the stock option position will be closed usually 3h before expiry.

So two scenarios can occur when Stock options are In-The-Money (ITM):

• (A) You have sufficient Cash to buy the underlying stock -> you will be assigned to buy at the strike price.
• (B) You do NOT have sufficient Cash to buy the underlying stock -> your stock option position will be closed before expiry.

How the system manage the risk and margin spikes:

When approaching the expiry of a stock options and the option is In-The-Money (ITM) or close to be ITM, our system will start to calculate the costs of acquiring the underlying stocks and reserve the cash accordingly.

More specifically, 3 hours before the expiry, the system will start reserving more and more cash; this to ensure that the cash required acquiring the underlying at the strike price is available at the time of expiry.

• The Option Chain Dashboard
• The Multi-Leg Spread Tool (also useful for rolling positions)
• Risk profile analysis

These tools provide a seamless and efficient way to analyze, structure and manage your derivative trades.

Additionally, you can leverage Greeks data, available both within the Derivatives widget and under the Position window. 

It enables you to list all options on an underlying instrument, allowing viewing and filtering by strategy.

You can monitor a matrix of CALLs and PUTs simultaneously with different strikes and different expirations, create simulated or planned positions and analyze them in the Risk Profile tool.

This means that you can simultaneously buy and/or sell different listed options from the same ticket, including calendar options, with different expirations.

Whether you use a pre-defined strategy or customize a spread manually, this feature gives you control over the net premium that you want to exchange in the market, providing information on their risk.

It also used by option traders for position rolling before the expiration.

It shows you the risks, rewards and break-even price point(s) for your positions, in combination with new theoretical orders for selected option strategies.