Options Assignment On A Covered Call Position (NLY)

I know that many of you out there reading this blog, wonder what happens when the call options you sold against your stock position get exercised? And then the next thing you are likely asking yourself is what you have to do?

As you can see from the screen shot, I was notified via email from my broker at TD Ameritrade that my calls that I sold against my 1,000 shares of NLY were being exercised early. It was a good ride, I was able to collect a few dividends, but what would had been the 3rd dividend was called away from me right before the ex-dividend date. The call was in the money by at least a $1/share, so it made sense for the buyer of that option to exercise his/her option to collect the dividend.

"Option Assignment is just a fancy term describing the fact that the owner of the option as exercised his right to buy your stock, since you as the seller of the option have the obligation (in the case of being short calls)."

So what happens now?

Everything from this point on is automated. The entire covered call position will be removed from your account. In my example my 1,000 shares of stock was sold at $15/share, leaving me with $15,000 in capital to re-allocate or get back into the same position if I still liked it. Additionally the call that I sold for about $0.55/share is mine to keep. So in reality I actually now have $15,550 dollars to re-allocate. There is an $15 fee that I was charged for this transaction.

Click here if you want to read more about Option Assignment.

Good Luck Trading! 

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