If you trade options, you know that expiration day can be a wild ride. Some trades go exactly as planned, while others take an unexpected turn—like waking up to an assignment you weren’t expecting.

This week, regular February Monthly options expire. I'm often asked about what happens to my positions or portfolio if I'm holding something that is expiring.

So, what actually happens when your options expire? Whether you’re holding long calls, short puts, or an iron condor, understanding assignment, settlement, and pin risk can save you from some unpleasant surprises. Let’s break it down.

What Happens When an Option Expires

When options hit expiration, a few things can happen:

• If they’re out of the money (OTM) → They expire worthless. No harm, no foul.

• If they’re in the money (ITM) → They’re usually exercised or assigned.

• If they’re right at the strike price → Things can get interesting (we’ll talk about pin risk in a bit).

Most brokers will automatically exercise an option if it’s at least $0.01 in the money...

As more stocks, more sectors and more countries around the world start to participate in this bull market, any of the short sellers who overstayed their welcome are getting blown up.

Good.

This is a classic characteristic of healthy bull market environments. I would encourage you to go back and study every bull market ever. You'll find that investors who own stocks are much more profitable than those who are selling stocks.

It's just math.

Here's the thing about short sellers that I think gets forgotten. Short sellers are guaranteed future buyers. Longs are only promising to be future sellers. 

The thing is that when shorts are getting squeezed, these can become forced liquidations. And margin clerks don't use limit orders. They'll spray the market, and it will crush you if you're on the wrong side of that.

But if you're on the right side - pay day!

Here is a list of stocks where short sellers are the most vulnerable to get blown up:

The list begins with names that have a high short interest. Then we look at the ones where the number of shares short are exponentially greater...

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza.

Welcome back to Under the Hood, where we'll cover all the action for the two weeks ended January 3, 2025. This report is published bi-weekly, in rotation with The Minor Leaguers.

What we do here is analyze the most popular stocks during the week and find opportunities to either join in and ride these momentum names higher, or fade the crowd and bet against them.

We use a variety of sources to generate the list of most popular names.

There are so many new data sources available that all we need to do is organize and curate them in a way that shows us exactly what we want: a list of stocks that are seeing an unusual increase in investor interest.

Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at our process.

Whether we’re measuring increasing interest based on large institutional purchases, unusual options activity, or simply our proprietary lists of trending tickers, there’s...

My uncle told me in 1999 that tech was about to take a nap.

I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I was too busy riding bikes and planning my next trip to a contest. 

But I’ll never forget the timing of his trades.

He sold all his tech stocks and started buying gold miners, micro caps, and commodities.

It sounded crazy to me at the time. But his entire analysis came down to one thing:

The Dollar.

We have not seen a real weak dollar environment in nearly 20 years.

Yeah, we’ve seen pullbacks—2017-18, late 2020-21—but a sustained downtrend?

I haven’t seen one.

Look at the chart. The last real decline was after the dot-com crash in 2000.

Since the Great Financial Crisis, the playbook was simple:

Strong dollar. Strong bonds.

That was the foundation that the ETF market was built on. There are almost 1000 fixed income ETFs.

Meanwhile, weak dollar trades—commodity ETFs, inflation plays—kept getting wiped out. 

Sports betting is so hot right now. 🥵

DraftKings $DKNG had one of its best earnings reactions ever on Friday, fueled by a blockbuster report.

The company acquired 3.5M new customers, increasing its total customer base by 42% Y/Y to 10.1M. 

That's a lot of gamblers!

As you can see, DraftKings gapped above a shelf of former highs from around this time last year. 

We think Friday's candlestick marked the beginning of a new leg higher for DKNG. 

If the biggest and best stock in the sports betting industry looks this good, imagine what its peers will do.

Genius Sports $GENI is the leading sports data, technology, and broadcast services provider. 

In 2021, they inked a deal with the NFL to distribute live data and statistics exclusively to sportsbooks and media companies.

This deal has been incredibly lucrative.

But that's not it. 

They have deals with sports leagues and media organizations worldwide, including the English Premier League, the NCAA, and ESPN.

In addition to the sweet fundamental tailwinds, the...

The altcoin space just got obliterated.

Traders have been liquidated en masse, and bullish positioning has been wiped clean. By definition, pessimism now outweighs optimism.

But if you've been following along, you know I spent months neutral on crypto. After this selloff, I’ve flipped bullish.

Zoom out. This is a textbook flush at a key demand zone.

While others get caught in the noise, I’m simplifying—weekly line chart, nothing fancy. The setups I’ve been waiting for in AI coins are here.

Don't miss the ASC Premium Mid-Month Strategy Session on Monday, February 17th, at 8 pm ET! 🚨

👉 Click here to register for the LIVE event.

This is the weekly post that aggregates all the charts we put together throughout the week and organizes them all into one, easy to flip through deck.

February is historically one of the best months of the year for commodities. This year is no different.

Coffee is like a freight train. It keeps chugging along to new all-time highs. 

Natural gas has rallied over 20% so far this month.

Dr. Copper is challenging a key level of interest and flirting with a multi-decade base breakout.

But what continues to stand out the most to us is the grain markets.

Last week, we outlined why we're buying...

One for the good guys.

All it took was one "earnings trade" in $APP to get the vertical spreads scoreboard in the green YTD for 2025:

We never know which trade will be the one that delivers big gains. That's why it is so important to have a process for sizing our positions, allocating risk equally among ideas, and sticking to it. When we do this, the handful of big winners make up for all the small losers.

Here's a look at the six vertical spreads we've closed in All Star Options so far this year:

Prior to yesterday's exit, we were 0-for-5 on closed long vertical spreads. But now with one +320% win, the average return for every vertical spread we've exited in 2025 is $186 per $1000 invested, with an average hold time of 57 days. Not bad considering the 17% win rate!

At the risk of jinxing it, we've got another long vertical spread in $NET that is currently deep in the money and will likely add to the win total and increase our average gain per trade.

It isn't easy losing more times than we win. But sticking to the process and...

Today's trade comes from a recent Junior Hall of Famers report.

Opportunities like this don't come around too often, but when I have a realistic shot at 10x-ing my money, I get really interested.

This is that.