Amsterdam Exchanges Announces Early Exercising Of Equity Options In The Event Of Dividend Distributions

Amsterdam Exchanges has noted that holders of call options frequently do not take the opportunity to exercise their options when dividends are distributed, before the options are due to expire. These option holders therefore miss out on the dividend and in many cases are put at a financial disadvantage.

As the dividend season is upon us again, it is important that investors consider the possibility of exercising options early. Amsterdam Exchanges has developed a program, the Call Exercise Assistant, to help them decide whether it would be a good idea to exercise a particular call option when the related dividend is distributed. This program can be downloaded from Amsterdam Exchanges' website (www.aex.nl) by clicking on "Information desk" followed by "Publications". The Call Exercise Assistant can then be selected from the pull-down menu.