The Blubber

You may have seen in the Flow feed (or perhaps even in your own portfolio) a ticker followed by a numerical value.

Example: DELL1

This is what you'd consider a "non-standard option." Non-standard options are the result of corporate actions such as stock split or a spin-off.

Shares of Apple, Tesla, and Amazon have undergone normal stock splits that did not result in the creation of non-standard options.

What makes a contract of DELL1 'non-standard?'

This is where the details regarding the corporate action come into play.

On November 1, 2021 DELL and VMware announced the completion of a spin-off of its 81% equity ownership in VMware. Per the VMware press release: "The spin-off from Dell Technologies provides VMware increased freedom to execute its multi-cloud strategy, a simplified capital structure and governance model, and additional operational and financial flexibility."

Each DELL shareholder received .440626 shares of VMware per share of DELL owned.

Per Barrons: "The estimated spin-off value of about $55 for every Dell share is determined by multiplying 0.44 times an adjusted price of $125 a share on VMware. That is VMware’s recent share price of $152, less a roughly $27-a-share dividend that VMware will pay to its holders and directly to Dell, not to Dell holders."

Post-corporate action all previously existing DELL contracts were converted into DELL1 contracts.

These non-standard DELL1 options each represent 100 shares of DELL (as you might expect), but they also represent ~44 shares of VMware.

Had you written and been assigned a DELL put prior to the spin-off you would be on the hook to purchase 100 shares.

Had you written a DELL put prior to the spin off, but assigned post-spin-off you would be on the hook for 100 shares of DELL and ~44 shares of VMware.

The non-standard options chain will remain 'as is' until all chains expire: that is to say that new strikes/options will not be created.

The post-spin-off DELL options chain is considered 'standard', and all DELL options purchased post spin-off assume control over 100 shares of DELL only (VMware shares are not a factor for a post-spin-off contract).