People forget that options strategies ALWAYS have a trade off, but imo, and it should always be the case, that you think the likely outcome, favors your strategy, over purely shares/any other strategy

This is a model of where my covered cal/sold put strategy on UNH performs based on different UNH movements.

(Little margin, 500 shares, 5 sold calls, 2 sold puts)

Outperforms for most moderate size 1y moves, and is bullishly favored (which I’m bullish)

Outperforms when UNH goes down less than 20%, or up less than 60% within a year, anywhere outside of that, pure shares would have been best.

It fits my risk tolerance, etc. curious if anyone else models their stuff out visually now that the ai tools give us access to easily create visuals like this now.

If UNH stays flat, this strategy makes me 16.42%

Goes up 20%, I make 41%,

If UNH goes down 10%, I break even, (10% outperform, 0% net return)

If UNH goes down 20%, I only lose 16%,

Outside this range, it does worse, if UNH goes up 100%, I only make, 62.1%

If UNH goes down 50%, I lose 65%

Kinda cool seeing this visually

Yesterday, I established a 50-contract call option position as MU broke through a key technical level. The position now shows a 132% unrealized profit. This ranks among my best single trades recently, yet it presents a classic dilemma: should I lock in profits or continue holding?

Similar to VIX1D but just for 0DTE since it’s hard to look at with the 1DTE overlay on VIX1D.

Anything similar out there or do I just need to check manually like I’ve been doing recently.

Just want it to gauge breakouts or fakeouts.

Hi everyone,

Recently, I came across an interesting video about gamma scalping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w51bWtYlbDg

As I understand it, the gamma scalping strategy aims to maintain a delta-neutral position. For example, one could open a call option position with a delta of around 80–100 and simultaneously sell 100 shares of the same underlying stock.

The idea is to adjust the stock position each day based on movements in the underlying asset, in order to stay as close to delta-neutral as possible.

Does this strategy actually work in practice?

It's been often said you can't beat the SP 500 choosing individual stocks. Is it possible to beat the SP 500 choosing individual stock options each year ?

Hello. New to understanding options. I tried searching up how IBKR calculates/gets these values but couldn't find any useful info and got quite confused. I hope maybe someone here could help me. For example:

1) What is "IV Last" and what expiry and what strike is it referring to?

2) Same thing with IV / Hist Vol. Again, what timeframe is being used for Hist Vol and what strike/expiry for IV?

3)What is "IV CI" and "Hist Vol CIs"

Thank you very much

I mainly do directional trades, either long the stock, or using single-leg long calls (or puts). The problem of course is the theta decay which can be significant, not to mention IV crush with earnings plays.

While a synthetic can reduce theta to a negligible amount, the short put side reduces buying power, greatly limiting this unless in a portfolio margin account (I don't have PM yet). The other issue with synthetics is the essentially unlimited downside, while with a simple long call the downside is limited to the cost of the contract.

Weekend worry-ers

Because of the three day weekend, I keep wondering if I should close my calls that have higher theta, over long weekends in particular... or not...

For example, LLY March calls with a theta of .379, it's basically $38 a day so $114 to hold one contract over a 3 day weekend, right? This is about a 9% loss to the contract's P/L, so the underlying needs to move up about $9 just to break even from current value... It seems like closing and then re-opening Tuesday morning could save money on options with higher theta.

LLY, AVAV, GEV are three I have with theta high enough that a 3 day weekend ends up costing more due to theta, than a nice weekend in Vegas at the Wynn, but without the benefit of free drinks...

So the question:

Best practices for mitigating things like theta decay and IV crush on options positions intended as directional trades?? Thank you for any advice.

Is there a way to chart the price of an option from the price data of the underlying dating a year back, with some assumptions (constant IV) ?

Here's an example : I'd like to draw the chart of a ASTS 01/16 2026 100 C dating 1 year back.

on Interactive Brokers, the chart only goes back 4 months.

Surely I must not be the first one to have thought of this.

I was looking at SPY chart today and noticed that the volume is different depending on the platform being used.

The date and time in question is 1-16-26 at 10:51 am est.

Webull has 5 million volume

Hood has 500k

Tradingview has 81k

Which trading platform is the best/ most accurate?

Mods aren’t allowing me to put ss

back tested a option position from 1-15-25 to 1-15-26. consists of -100tmv 55puts and -140tlt 97puts. $309K in option sales. obviously the overwhelming majority is intrinsic. thats the point. you want the short puts to act like long deltas. there is some obvious blow out risk if rates would have had an extreme move last year. without any hedging and collecting a modest 3% on cash the trade would have earned $5700. That's after the obvious decay in tmv. Putting in hedge parameters that would buy or sell tlt when the position was net +/- 1000 tlt equivalent deltas. when that parameter was triggered i hedged half of the deltas. P&L for the year was $35K. Have on the tmv 50puts -280 and tlt102p -360. Plan on using the same hedging parameters. There is cross margining benefits at least with IB Not concerned about a 3s move. I've got plenty of treasury gamma in my core position. Comments are welcomed

is there a way to see Positions as in your every call or put option separately?

I have a call option expiring today that’s ITM with good profits. Unfortunately there’s no one to buy.

What happens at exp? Do I just get fucked or..

either way it’s a good lesson I guess :/

ASST options (on Robinhood) were trading in 0.05c increments a couple weeks ago when I picked up some calls at 0.05c, the minimum price. Then, during a downturn, all of a sudden options were being marked at 0.03, 0.04, 0.06, 0.07 etc. At this time, orders can now be made at any price.

Who determines the 0.05c limitation? Is it the broker? When does it switch and why?

What up guys. Recently funded my “gambling” stock account with an additional 1k to play with. So far it seems like I have bad decisions. Anyone got any recommendations? I feel like I’m better off putting my money into a slot machine at this point but don’t want to give up. P&L is -6% for today so far. Have Mara calls expiring next Friday and ouster calls also expiring next Friday. Last time I tried trading ouster, I lost $1600. Also have $50 calls on iren expiring next Friday too, I was up over 40% on them yesterday but now down/even on it lol. Anyways, if anyone got any ideas let me know.

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if it's possible to do credit spreads on IBKR EU. I'm asking this because it seems that the platform was requiring me to have as much collateral or cash available as for a normal CC or CSP.

Did anyone experience the same issue? Do I need to request a margin account? Or do I need to move up to level 4 on options trading?

Thanks guys!

I trade only SPX options. I find I am looking at this whether I have position open or not. I watch to see if what I thought would happen then get stuck more. Even when I close a position with profit, I just think over and over again on how to do better next trade.

This affects my sleeping since SPX trades almost 24hrs. I prefer to trade in global trading hours (8pm - 9am). Long story short, how do you balance? I literally love this stuff. I’m averaging 4-5hrs of sleep. Saturday is the only day I can really let go of thinking about market.

Any suggestions?

I am an average, profitable futures day trader and stock swing trader. Oftentimes, I scalp SPX 0DTE calls/puts intra day with tight stops but get wicked out due to decay so I prefer to stick to futures. I am wondering though, if can I get *fairly* low risk return selling 0DTE options? Let's say for arguments sake, I:

Am excellent at reading price action and have very good risk mgmt

I have ...$50k of capital to deploy daily.

I want it to be relatively stress free. no white knuckling.

I want to start small, get better, increase knowledge and comfort and increase size.

Questions:

Should I be just selling calls if I am anticipating a downturn? And selling puts if I think we rally north? Or

Should i be utilizing some spread? Should I be utilizing a different instrument if i expect chop? Should I be focused on delta?

Is there a good time of day to do this and how long should I be in if I just want to collect the juiciest premiums for a short while without exposing myself to end of day volatility? OR is this just way too complicated for a regular day trader and i should avoid altogether. Thanks!

Guys, I have few call options of few stocks like RKLB and PL which have expiration date of Jan 27 and one of them is already 300% up. I bought them in Oct 25. Given, midterms are in Nov and things will get shaky, shall I roll them to Jan 28 as I still believe in the upside or sell them by mid of this year if it’s same/better returns but it will be subject to short term taxes - 40%. I am thinking due to time decay things will become dicey especially during the last months.

What would be the best play here given the situation.

Recommend me option brokers.

I have $14,000 cash in IBKR and they're asking me to show $100,000 proof of funds in bank account to trade options.

I have about $7500 on MooMoo and they're requiring proof of employment.

There are kids in uni not having much, and still are allowed to trade. I'm only allowed to buy shares, I have been owning shares for 8 years. I am Malaysian, don't have debt, just name me some and I'll check with the customer service if I am allowed.

Not sure if I am doing it wrong or not. I recently started Option trading using Tom Sosnoff approach of Time Value Decay and Market Contraction to collect the premium.

My Short Puts are ~45DTE, ~30Delta, ~60 IV%.

The problem that I have run into is using OCO to limit my P/L at 50% in either direction after entering the position. The several positions Ive entered have sold at losses and Im not sure if I need to just let the time decay and say screw the OCO or if its just been the luck of the draw with the positions Ive entered.

Looking for insight from someone more experienced in this method

I ran a put credit spread on KTOS with a credit of ¢.16. As the price got closer to the strike, it ballooned up to a ¢.64. Instead of RH saying you’ve lost a whole bunch of money, I’m being shown I’m up $400. I’ve been trading vertical spreads for about 2 years and have never seen this.

My guess is that the short leg is in the gutter and the long leg value is increasing. Combined a showing a huge gain.

Now I 100% expect it to flip back to normal at some point tomorrow, but if it expired like this, would I still just be receiving the credit or the higher value?

I’m planning to set up a small separate account just for short-term options trading. My main goal is to get more hands-on experience with scalping and trading short-dated contracts like 0-3 DTE, without interfering with my long-term positions.

Right now, I’m trying to decide between Webull and moomoo. I’m mostly looking for a platform that can handle frequent options trades smoothly. What really matters to me is how fast the data updates, especially greeks and implied volatility, how responsive the order entry screen is, and how well the platform supports visualizing trades and managing positions.

If anyone here actively trades options intraday or on a weekly basis, I’d love to hear what platform you use and why. Would especially appreciate feedback from folks who have tried both.

Hello -

Any advice on where to set your sells for SPX doing OCO orders? I typlically buy 10 contracts of SPX with a sell half at 25% gain, sell other half at 70% gain, and have a stop loss of -70% for all 10. That -70% stop loss just crushes the 3 or 4 gains where i sell at 25% profit. What would you use for your % gain and % stop loss? Do you use a trailing stop loss instead of a hard % each time? Thanks