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Definition · Level 1 · Options basics
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A writer’s uncertainty when the stock closes at or very near a short strike on expiration: you won’t know until after the close, often the next morning, whether you’re assigned (after-hours moves can change holders’ decisions), so you may wake up with an unwanted stock position.
Example
XYZ closes at 49.98 and you’re short covered 50 calls — you only find out by Monday whether you still own the stock.
Where Tradecraft teaches it
Level 1 · Options basics, in the lesson “Expiration cycles & expiration day”: Monthlies, weeklies, 0DTE, LEAPS — and what happens on the last day.
Related terms
- 0DTE“Zero days to expiration”: options on their final trading day — little time value left, and near the money gamma and time decay are at their most…
- ExpirationThe date the contract ceases to exist; any unused right disappears, and on that day only intrinsic value is left.
- Last trading dayFinal session in which an expiring contract can be bought or sold: for stock options the expiration day itself (usually a Friday, to the 4:00 pm ET…
- LEAPSLong-term Equity AnticiPation Securities: listed options expiring more than a year out (up to about three years, usually in January), often used as…
- MonthliesStandard option expirations on the third Friday of each month (the Thursday before if that Friday is an exchange holiday).
- WeeklysShort-dated options expiring in the weeks between standard monthly dates, most often on Fridays; as of 2025, SPX, SPY and QQQ listed an expiry every…