Hello, I'm new to options and just have a question regarding when selling put options on TD Ameritrade. Does the collateral in the case that the option gets exercised get held and is not released until next business day after the option expires? For example, I sell one weekly put option with a strike price of $15 so in this case I would need to make sure I have $1500 as collateral right? So on Friday of that week, the market closes and the underlying stock stays above $15, so the option expires worthless. If I just let it expire and don't manually close out the contract position, does my $1500 get released back to me the following business day? Thanks
The margin requirement in a margin account is in the vicinity of 20% (I'm assuming that TD is the same as Reg T not higher). For a cash secured put, the collateral would be the strike price less the premium received. This is released to you at expiration (which technically is Saturday for equity options) and would be available to you on Monday morning if the option expired worthless.
