Blog Commenter On His Experience Trading China MediaExpress Holdings

He owned puts on CCME when it halted:

I had a half-dozen phone calls back and forth as expiration loomed, speaking to a junior and then not so junior person at my brokerage. I basically pulled up the OCC language on expiration of options in suspended stock. Can't recall quite what it said, but basically that you can exercise provisionally (I think there's some leeway for the broker to refuse, but I didn't highlight this).

Since I was exercising and had no underlying, I then had to borrow the stock, which was the broker's main issue, but they found some and I paid whatever the last borrow cost was until it traded again--around 5 weeks later, as I recall (the suspension lasted for a few months, I think). I bought to cover on the first day it traded again on the Pinks; there wasn't much of a squeeze, maybe because the stock seemed worthless, and I wanted to put the whole chapter behind me and book the gain.

It really wasn't difficult; maybe a half hour of work. But still nerve wracking when the initial response is, "Oh, sorry, you'll have to eat that twelvefold gain because we don't feel like looking something up."

Good to know. The SEC recently sued CCME.