Drat, just when you think you had figured out all the manipulations, they had to throw options in the mix.
Ok so let me get this right, anyone who had sold put options got exercised yesterday (assuming yesterday was expiry date) and were forced to buy stock at specified strike price. If I had bought such put options and wanted to exercise them, would I have to physically hold the stock to sell to the seller of the put option, or would I just get the difference between strike price and current share price from the seller? I assume it is the former i.e. I'd have to sell the stock to the seller of the put options and they'd then be forced to sell them on market if they couldn't hold the position.
I am assuming the options which just expired were the following:
