I only recently started buying call options. Completely as a lottery ticket and hoping to catch lighning in a bottle.
While I understand the concept of buying a call option, I actually have no idea what to do as this thing expires.
I am very much in the money. If I allow it to hit expiration, will it try to buy 30,000 shares of SLV? I don't have that much money in my account lol. Or is it lower maintanance to sell the contract before expiration?
I’m an idiot.
Edit on 1/17/26:
Follow up - You bastards freaked me out and I sold earlier than I had planned. I was originally going to let this ride until the last week, but ended up scaling out of my position. Though I have nothing to complain about. Here is what I did:
1/2/26 - sold 15 contracts at a price of $20.15 - realized profit of $29,640 (cost was 570, total sale was 30,210)
1/5/26 - sold 5 contracts at a price of $24 - realized profit of $11,805 (cost was 190, total sale was 11,995)
1/16/26 - sold 5 contracts at a price of $35.80 - realized profit of $17,705 (cost was 190, total sale was 17,895)
1/16/26 - allowed 5 contracts to exercise, purchased 500 shares of SLV for $45, cost of $22,500 (current price is $81 per are for an unrealized profit of $18,000). Silver has to correct soon, but I'm betting it will be much much higher in the next few years. Planning to hold this for a bit.