Settlement Type: The One Contract Detail That Silently Decides Four Things About Your Trade
Most traders check the strike, the expiration, and the premium before entering an options trade, and never check how the contract settles. That single detail, cash versus physical, silently determines four separate things about the position: whether you can be assigned, how much capital you might suddenly need, whether early exercise is even possible, and how the gains are taxed. This is the pre-trade framework for reading settlement type before it reads you.