We have three options positions expiring at the end of today. As of this morning’s opening prices, it appears two of them will expire “in-the-money” in which case your options brokerage account will be affected.

On the plus side of the equation, our short put on Nielsen Holdings (NYSE: NLSN) looks like it will expire well out-of-the-money. That means we will not have to buy the stock, so that trade is pure profit. I know some of you closed out this position weeks ago to ensure a large gain, but either way this one could not have gone much better for us.

We will also make money on our covered call for Spectra Energy Partners (NYSE: SEP) at a $35 strike price, which is solidly in-the-money. That means if you own the stock then it will most likely be called away from you at that price. That will close out the position we opened three months ago when the short put we wrote against SEP in February was assigned to us in June at $35.

Although we’ll end up breaking even on the share price, we’ll make money on the two sets of options premiums we collected plus last month’s quarterly distribution payment. At our minimum limit prices, those three payments add up to $2.79. That works out to an 8% gain over seven months, or nearly 14% on an annualized basis. Not too shabby for a trade that initially went in the opposite direction we expected.

The one trade that did not go in our favor this month is our short put on The Gap (NYSE: GPS). The stock opened this morning well below our $30 strike price, so we will most likely have it put to us at that price.

If you do not want to own the stock, you can buy that put option back today to close out your position. We sold that put for a minimum premium of $1.50, and this morning it could be bought for about $2.50, resulting in a $1 loss (or $100 per contract for 100 shares of GPS).

If you do want to own the stock then you don’t have to do anything. The shares will be deposited into your brokerage account next week and it will be debited for $3,000 for each contract you wrote. Similar to what happened with Spectra as described above, my expectation is the GPS will soon rally at which time we will be able to write a profitable covered call position against it.