How corporate actions affect your options
It’s not always clear what happens to your options position when the underlying stock executes a corporate action. The following describes what you can expect.
If you own options on a stock that executes a reverse stock split, a merger, or a spinoff, you can expect one or more of the following to occur:
Here’s what will change about your contract after the underlying stock executes a mandatory corporate action.
If the underlying stock for an options contract you own pays a special cash dividend, the strike price for the options contract will decrease by the cash dividend amount.
The OCC releases the new cash portion of your contract 2-3 weeks after the corporate action is processed. This may affect your investing account if you exercise your options contract or if you’re assigned well before the expiration date.
Keep in mind, if the forward split doesn’t result in a round number (i.e. 5 for 4, or 3 for 2), the rules will be different: