Answer:   Yes, the risk reward for the credit spread is the same whether the spread is 10 points wide or 20 points wide.  However, we recommend that our subscribers have two accounts when trading 10 point wide credit spreads on the RUT because we want to maintain maximum flexibility to allow us to open the other side of the spread to complete the iron condor.   In order to complete an iron condor where maintenance is only held for one of the spreads, both the top bear call spread and the bottom bull put spread need to have the same point width between the sell leg and the buy leg.  (i.e. if we have a 10 point wide bull put spread, we have to open a 10 point wide bear call spread to complete the iron condor)    It is true that if we end up creating a 20 point wide spread on the bottom we can easily open a 20 point wide spread on the top to complete the iron condor…and this will work.  However, for most months it’s not that simple and we are alternating between opening the top spreads and the bottom spreads, and we are moving our strike prices around as the underlying index is moving, so it’s better to keep all of our spreads 10 points wide giving us maximum flexibility and the best chance to complete the iron condors on all of our trades.

Answer:   In a very rare occasion that we get stuck with ITM credit spreads, we will usually roll them and keep them alive….and eventually get 50% to 70% of our money back.   Unfortunately, and fortunately, I’ve become an expert on rolling because some of my spreads went ITM during the Oct 2008 crash, and after rolling them I got back 65% of my maintenance.   Not bad for a total melt-down.  (Just as a side note, most credit spread traders, including editor-in–chief’s from other credit spread newsletters don’t have experience in rolling because most just throw in the towel and let their subscribers take a total loss.  I personally hate to lose money and will fight to the end to get back at least some of my money) 

Answering your question specifically, if some of our spreads went ITM and we didn’t want to roll them but just let them expire, the credit spread on the RUT and SPX (classified as broad based indexes) are cash settled, so cash would be withdrawn from our account.   If the spread went completely ITM and we let it expire, we would lose all of our risk capital, which is the required maintenance less the premium collected.

Per options on the SPY and IWM (which are ETFs that track at 1/10^th the value of the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 indexes, respectively) the ETF shares would be PUT to us where we have to buy the shares at the strike price and the shares would be deposited into our account.

Again, in general with this situation, and this is only for the emergency case where the stock market crashes 12% or more in just a few days and we get stuck with ITM bull put spreads, we will roll our spreads month to month and there is a very good chance we’ll get back at least half of our money, and more like 60% to 70%.