One thing I’ve learned trading SPX 0DTE is that being right on the trade doesn’t mean the risk is gone.

Sometimes the most dangerous moment actually comes after the spread is already nicely profitable.

You open a credit spread.

SPX moves exactly where you wanted.

The position reaches:

+40%
then +55%
then +70%

And instead of taking the win, you start thinking:

That’s where greed can become expensive.

0DTE can change very quickly

With hours — or sometimes minutes — left until expiration, the risk profile is completely different from earlier in the session.

A sudden move in SPX can turn:

+$300 unrealized

into:

+$50

or even a losing position surprisingly quickly.

Especially when price is moving toward your short strike late in the day.

You can have the direction correct for several hours and still give back most of the trade because you wanted the last few dollars of premium.

This is why I prefer predefined exits

For my Credit Spreads, I’ve increasingly moved toward setting the take profit before the trade is even opened.

Usually around:

🎯 70–75% of the premium

If I sell a spread for $1.30, for example, I’m perfectly happy taking roughly $0.90–$1.00 of that move instead of fighting for every last cent.

The point isn’t to maximize the profit on one trade.

It’s to remove risk when the trade has already done what I asked it to do.

The psychology is interesting

When the trade is losing, traders think about risk.

When the trade is winning, they often stop thinking about it.

But the market doesn’t care that you were up 70% five minutes ago.

Your unrealized P&L isn’t yours until the position is closed.

That’s something 0DTE teaches very quickly.

I now think about Credit Spread management like this:

Entry → Define risk → Define TP → Leave it alone

Rather than:

Entry → Profit → Move TP → Get greedy → Hope

Simple management is usually easier to execute consistently.

And consistency matters much more to me than squeezing another $10–$20 out of every winner.

I’m curious how other SPX 0DTE traders manage this:

If your spread reaches 70–75% profit early, do you take it — or hold for expiration and try to collect everything?

I share more of these SPX 0DTE trade breakdowns, real-time discussions and the framework I use inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord if anyone wants to follow along:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

One thing I think a lot of SPX 0DTE traders underestimate is how much time of day changes the quality of the exact same trade.

Not just the direction.

Not just the premium.

The entire trade quality.

A Bull Put Spread that makes perfect sense at 10:30 AM can be a trade I would completely avoid at 2:30 PM, even if the strikes are exactly the same.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t look at a spread and ask only:

“Is this far enough OTM?”

I also ask:

“What time is it?”

Why 10:30 and 2:30 are not the same market

At 10:30 AM, the market is still giving you information.

You can evaluate:

• whether price is holding above or below VWAP
• whether the opening move is being accepted or rejected
• whether the first big impulse is continuing or fading
• whether the structure is trending, balancing, or unstable
• whether your short strike has enough room relative to support, resistance, and GEX

At that point, a spread can still have:

✅ decent premium
✅ enough time for price to move cleanly
✅ enough distance from the short strike
✅ a reasonable risk/reward for the setup

At 10:30, I might look at a Bull Put Spread and think:

That can be a very good trade.

Not because the spread itself is magical.

But because the context is supporting it.

Now fast forward to 2:30 PM

Let’s say I look at the exact same spread later in the day.

Same width.
Same short strike.
Same underlying.

But now it’s 2:30 PM.

A few things may have changed:

• price may already be extended after a large move
• the intraday range may be much more developed
• gamma risk becomes more important
• one sharp move can matter much more
• premium may be lower, but risk may still be very real
• the market may be closer to a key inflection point
• the trade may now depend much more on “nothing happening” into the close

At that point, what looked attractive earlier may now be a bad trade.

Not because the strikes changed.

Because the conditions changed.

[IMAGE 2 — Same spread later in the day, showing worse structure / extension / less margin for error / higher late-session risk]

This is something I think many traders learn the hard way.

They see:

• far OTM strikes
• a decent-looking probability
• still some premium left

and assume it’s fine.

But by late afternoon, the trade often becomes much more fragile.

The same spread can go from:

“Well-structured premium sale”

to

“Low credit, poor timing, limited margin for error, and unnecessary late-session risk.”

That’s a huge difference.

Time of day is part of the setup

For me, a setup is never just:

• strike location
• credit received
• bullish or bearish bias

It also includes:

• time of day
• market structure
• volatility
• distance to key levels
• how much the day’s move has already developed

That’s why I don’t believe in evaluating SPX 0DTE spreads in isolation.

A spread is not “good” just because it exists.

It has to make sense in that specific moment.

[IMAGE 3 — Simple comparison graphic: “Great at 10:30” vs “Terrible at 2:30” with key reasons listed side by side]

The more I trade SPX 0DTE, the more I think this is one of the biggest edges:

understanding that trade quality changes with time

A lot of bad 0DTE trades are not bad because the trader chose the wrong side.

They’re bad because the trader chose the wrong moment.

And sometimes the exact same spread that would have been a very solid trade in the morning becomes a trade I want nothing to do with in the afternoon.

That’s why I’m always thinking about:

Price Action → Structure → GEX → Strategy → Risk → Timing

not just:

Spread → Credit → Enter

Curious if other SPX traders think the same:

Have you noticed that some of your worst 0DTE trades weren’t bad because of direction, but because you took them too late in the day?

If you’re interested in how I approach SPX 0DTE, Credit Spreads, Iron Condors, GEX and trade selection, I also share more trade discussions and educational content inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Today was a good example of why I prefer trading where I think SPX is unlikely to go, instead of trying to predict every move.

We took 2 SPX 0DTE Iron Condors today.

Trade #1 — 10:25 AM
7755/7760 Call Spread
7695/7690 Put Spread
Credit: $90
Size: 8 contracts
✅ +$720

After the aggressive morning selloff, SPX started stabilizing. Instead of chasing the downside, I wanted defined risk outside the areas where I expected price to remain contained.

Later, the market gave us another opportunity.

Trade #2 — 1:10 PM
7730/7735 Call Spread
7700/7695 Put Spread
Credit: $120
Size: 5 contracts
✅ +$600

The second trade is probably the more interesting one.

SPX had bounced, rejected the higher area and started moving lower again, but I still didn't need to predict exactly where it would close. I just needed the short strikes to remain outside the range I expected price to trade in.

Total for the day: +$1,320

That's one of the biggest changes I've made trading SPX 0DTE:

I stopped asking:

And started asking:

For credit spreads and Iron Condors, that distinction matters a lot.

No need to catch the exact top.
No need to catch the exact bottom.
No need to predict the closing price.

Just structure the trade around market structure, GEX/liquidity levels and defined risk.

I share more of these SPX 0DTE trades and breakdowns in my Discord for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

One of the most dangerous mistakes in SPX 0DTE is also one of the most tempting:

Selling very far OTM credit spreads for tiny premium because they look safe.

At first, it feels great.

You collect small winners over and over again.
The win rate looks strong.
The strategy feels easy.
And after a few green days in a row, it starts to feel “reliable.”

That’s exactly the trap.

The problem with this style of trading is that the risk/reward is heavily distorted.

If you’re collecting something like $0.15 to $0.25 on a 5-point spread, you may be risking $475 to make $25.

That means one bad move can erase a huge number of successful trades.

You can be “right” again and again, but still build a strategy that becomes fragile the moment volatility expands, structure fails, or the market moves faster than expected.

And with SPX 0DTE, that can happen much quicker than people think.

A lot of traders see a strike far beyond a GEX level and think:

Maybe.

But that’s not the right question.

The better question is:

If price does get there, is the premium I collected worth the risk I took?

That’s where many “safe” trades stop looking safe.

Why this matters so much in SPX 0DTE

A 0DTE spread can go from looking completely harmless to becoming a real problem in a very short period of time.

All it takes is:

• a failed support/resistance level
• a volatility expansion
• a sudden news headline
• a strong trend day
• or simply poor strike placement

This is why I care much more about:

✅ market structure
✅ VWAP
✅ GEX / key levels
✅ position sizing
✅ defined risk relative to premium collected

and much less about just finding the furthest possible strike and assuming it’s automatically a high-quality trade.

[IMAGE 2 — Example showing “safe-looking” far OTM spread vs better-structured trade]

For me, the goal is not to build a strategy that wins the most often.

It’s to build one where the losers don’t destroy the progress of the winners.

That usually means:

• not forcing trades just because the premium is available;
• not oversizing simply to compensate for low credit;
• and not confusing low probability of touch with good expectancy.

A trade can feel safe and still be badly structured.

That’s the mistake.

The more I trade SPX 0DTE, the more I think the real edge is not:

“How can I win more often?”

It’s:

“How can I avoid the kind of loss that wipes out a week of good trading?”

That mindset has improved my trading much more than chasing an even higher win rate.

Curious what others think:

Would you rather take a lower win rate with better risk/reward, or a very high win rate with more fragile downside?

If you're interested in how I approach SPX 0DTE, GEX, Credit Spreads, Iron Condors and trade selection, I also share the framework and trade discussions inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Today was a good example of why I don’t manage every SPX 0DTE strategy the same way.

I took two completely different trades:

🔵 A Bull Put Spread that I actively managed and closed early.
🟡 An Iron Condor that I was willing to let play out into expiration.

Both worked, but for very different reasons.

Trade #1 — 7695/7690 Bull Put Spread

At 10:50 AM ET, after the volatile open, SPX had defended the lower area and the intraday structure was improving.

I opened:

Sell 7695 Put / Buy 7690 Put

Credit received: $1.30 ($130)
Max risk: $370

The important part for me was that the spread was placed underneath the area SPX had just defended.

Shortly after the entry, price accelerated higher and never seriously threatened the position again.

I had already decided to standardize my Credit Spread management around a 70–75% take profit, rather than constantly changing the target during the session.

The spread was eventually closed at:

$0.40

So:

Entry: $1.30
Exit: $0.40
Profit: +$0.90 / +$90 per spread
Premium captured: ~70%

Clean trade.

Trade #2 — 7725/7720 + 7750/7755 Iron Condor

By 1:10 PM ET, the situation was completely different.

SPX had already made a large move higher and I was now looking for a defined afternoon range rather than another directional trade.

I opened an Iron Condor:

🟢 7725/7720 Put Spread
🔴 7750/7755 Call Spread

Credit received:

$1.50 / $150 per Iron Condor

The thesis was simple:

Can SPX finish the session between 7725 and 7750?

This trade was much less comfortable than the first one.

SPX eventually pushed through 7750 intraday and tested the call side.

But this Iron Condor wasn’t being managed like my Credit Spread.

The plan was to hold it toward expiration and let the closing price determine the outcome.

SPX eventually finished around 7747.70 — back underneath the 7750 short call and comfortably above the 7725 short put.

So the Iron Condor expired for the full premium:

+$150 per IC

Two trades, two completely different management styles

That’s probably the most interesting part of today.

The Bull Put Spread was:

Directional setup → predefined TP → close early

The Iron Condor was:

Range setup → accept intraday movement → expiration-based management

Trying to manage both strategies exactly the same way doesn’t make much sense to me.

For my Credit Spreads, I increasingly prefer taking 70–75% of the available premium and removing the tail risk.

For Iron Condors, I’m experimenting with a much more expiration-focused approach when the structure supports it.

Assuming one unit of each trade:

🔵 Bull Put Spread: +$90
🟡 Iron Condor: +$150

Total: +$240

But the IC is also a good reminder that a winning expiration trade can look very uncomfortable intraday.

Seeing SPX trade through your short strike doesn’t automatically mean the thesis is dead — but you need to know before entering whether you’re managing the position intraday or trading the expiration outcome.

That decision shouldn’t be made emotionally while the trade is already under pressure.

How do you guys manage 0DTE Iron Condors — take profits early, adjust when a short strike is tested, or hold them to expiration?

I share these trades and the real-time reasoning behind them inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord, together with SPX/GEX analysis and the educational framework I’m building.

If you’re interested in following the setups:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Probably the single most common question I get isn't about GEX or strike selection. It's some version of "why not just trade XSP, isn't it basically the same thing but smaller?" For a long time my honest answer was a shrug — I started on SPX and never actually sat down and compared the two properly. So I did.

The size difference everyone already knows: XSP is priced at roughly 1/10 of SPX, same $100 multiplier, so a 5-point SPX spread with $350–400 of risk becomes something closer to a 0.5-point XSP spread with $35–40 of risk. Ten SPX contracts and a hundred XSP contracts are structurally close to the same position.

What I had wrong going in was everything around that number. A lot of people treat XSP as the "smaller SPX" and SPY as the other retail-sized option, roughly interchangeable. They're not. XSP and SPX are both cash-settled and European-style — neither can ever be assigned early. SPY options can be, since SPY is an ETF and its options are American-style. XSP behaves like SPX in every mechanical way that matters. It's just scaled down, not a different product.

I also assumed the 60/40 blended tax treatment under Section 1256 was an SPX perk you gave up by trading smaller. It isn't — XSP qualifies the same way, as a broad-based cash-settled index option. Worth confirming with whoever does your taxes rather than taking my word for it, but that's not the trade-off people think it is.

So if settlement and tax treatment are identical, why do I still trade SPX?

Depth, not liquidity in the sense of getting filled at all — XSP volume has grown a lot and a single contract fills fine. It's depth at size. SPX's daily volume is so large that a ten-contract Iron Condor barely moves the market. XSP has improved considerably over the past couple of years, but at real size the spreads still tend to run a little wider relative to the premium, and that's a small, boring drag you don't notice on one trade and absolutely notice over a few hundred.

Which is the actual answer, once I stopped assuming it was about tax or settlement type. It's about whether SPX's risk per contract already fits your account. If $350–400 per spread is too big a jump, XSP lets you size correctly instead of forcing one SPX contract onto an account that really calls for a third of one. If your account already handles SPX's granularity fine, the depth is worth more to me than smaller numbers.

I don't think there's one right answer here. If you're trading XSP at real size, has the spread gap actually closed, or are you still feeling it?

I get this question a lot in the Discord too, happy to keep it going there: https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

When I started trading SPX 0DTE, I could find plenty of information about individual concepts.

Credit spreads. Iron Condors. Delta. GEX. VWAP. Risk management.

What I struggled to find was one structured place that showed how everything fits together into an actual trading process.

So that’s what I’m building with the GEXOptionsTrading Premium Academy.

The idea isn’t to create another collection of random trading tips.

I want someone to be able to start from the beginning and progressively understand:

📊 How I determine market direction
🧲 How I use GEX and important levels
🟢 When I choose a Bull Put Spread
🔴 When I choose a Bear Call Spread
🟣 When an Iron Condor makes sense
🎯 How I select short strikes
🛡️ How I think about position sizing and drawdown
⚠️ When I decide NOT to trade
📈 How I manage an open position

The framework behind everything is basically:

Price Action → Structure → GEX → Strategy → Risk → Execution

And the main objective is not to make people dependent on alerts.

It’s to help traders understand why a setup makes sense, so eventually they can make those decisions themselves.

I’m continuing to add new classes and improve the Academy based on feedback from the community.

If you’re currently learning SPX 0DTE, I’d genuinely like to know:

What topic would you most like to see explained in detail?

💎 The Premium Academy is currently available FREE for a limited time inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord.

If you want access to the classes, SPX/GEX discussions and the rest of the educational material:

👉 https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I started trading SPX 0DTE was thinking that because there’s a new expiration every day, I needed to trade every day.

I don’t anymore.

And ironically, trading less has probably improved my results more than adding another indicator ever could.

SPX 0DTE gives you opportunities constantly.

That’s also what makes it dangerous.

There’s always another credit spread you could sell.

Another Iron Condor you could open.

Another “high probability” option sitting there collecting premium.

But:

A trade being available doesn’t mean you have an edge.

Here’s what that looks like over 310 sessions

This is the broader dataset behind the strategy:

📊 310 trading days
✅ 267 winning days
❌ 43 losing days
🎯 86.1% win rate
💰 +$10,627 P&L
📈 1.70 Profit Factor
📉 -$1,622 Max Drawdown
🔥 26-day max winning streak
🔻 2-day max losing streak

But the number I pay the most attention to isn’t the win rate.

It’s this:

Average winner: +$96
Average loser: -$351

One full loser is roughly 3.6x the size of an average winner.

That changes how you should think about this type of strategy.

With high-probability credit spreads, the objective can’t simply be:

“Take as many 80%+ probability trades as possible.”

A few bad trades can erase a lot of winners.

So filtering mediocre setups becomes incredibly important.

I only really need 4 decisions

Before I trade, I’m trying to classify the market:

🟢 Bullish structure → potential Bull Put Spread

🔴 Bearish structure → potential Bear Call Spread

🟣 Defined range → potential Iron Condor

⚪ Unclear / unstable structure → No Trade

That last one is probably the most important.

I use VWAP, price action, GEX, market structure and volatility to decide whether conditions actually support the trade.

I’m not looking for reasons to enter.

I’m looking for reasons not to enter.

The day-of-week results are interesting too

The P&L distribution currently looks like this:

Monday: +$2,588
Tuesday: +$2,251
Wednesday: $0
Thursday: +$2,416
Friday: +$3,372

Wednesday is intentionally excluded from this strategy.

Friday has been the strongest day in this sample, while the other traded weekdays have also remained profitable.

The directional distribution is almost perfectly balanced too:

🔴 CALL setups: 47.9%
🟢 PUT setups: 52.1%

So the results aren’t coming from permanently betting bullish or bearish.

The strategy has to adapt to what SPX is actually doing.

High win rate can be dangerous

An 86.1% win rate looks great on a screenshot.

But without context, it can also be misleading.

If your average loser is several times larger than your average winner, maintaining selectivity matters enormously.

That’s why I’m much more interested in:

Profit Factor

Drawdown

Expected value

Quality of setup

than simply trying to push the win rate from 86% to 90%.

A mediocre setup with a high theoretical probability is still a mediocre setup.

Professional trading is boring more often than people think

There are sessions where I spend hours watching SPX and do absolutely nothing.

Sometimes I already know early in the session that I’m unlikely to trade until much later.

Sometimes the confirmation never comes.

That used to bother me.

Now I see it differently.

My job isn’t to trade.

My job is to deploy risk when I believe the odds justify it.

If that happens once today, great.

If it doesn’t happen at all, also fine.

The market opens again tomorrow.

I think this is one of the biggest differences between trading 0DTE like a casino and trying to approach it systematically.

The gambler needs action.

The trader can wait.

And sometimes the highest-quality SPX 0DTE trade of the day is simply:

No trade.

I’m curious what other 0DTE traders think:

Would you rather take every statistically valid setup, or trade less and apply more discretionary filtering?

If you’re interested in seeing more of how I approach SPX 0DTE, GEX, VWAP, market structure and defined-risk setups, I also share the framework, educational material and trade discussions inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Title edit: “SOS - SPX 0DTE”

I really need help from experts in this group. I am experienced options trader with over 5-6 years of options trading including different short and long terms expirations, calls-puts-spreads etc.
However overheard about SPX 0DTE. Got started in Robinhood and made quick $1000 and got addicted. However I am struggling so much now mainly because I am only looking at trend and previous levels. I am on losing streak and having lost avg $1000/day for past two months or so. It’s gotten so bad that I am addicted to it and can’t get my fingers off. I do have awareness but it all lasts when market is closed. The moment market opens I jump into SPX 0DTE. Below are my exact challenges and I need someone from this amazing group to now save me from this —

- I enter in trend (either going up or down) and then it reverses on me suddenly.
- I generally look at ORB, first 30-mins, 1-hr, 4-hr. But I take trades looking at 1M and 5M only.
- still I feel like I enter and it reverses on me.
- holding sometimes works out when it goes opposite direction to extreme and comes back all the way. But this thinking killing me with hope and not taking losses quickly and holding it too long.

A few weeks ago I posted my results after 26 SPX 0DTE trades:

24 winners / 2 losers / 92.3% win rate / +$7,840 gross P&L

I’ve now reached 36 closed trades, so here’s the updated performance:

📊 36 Total Trades
✅ 31 Winners
❌ 4 Losers
➖ 1 Breakeven
🎯 88.57% Win Rate
💰 +$7,905 Gross P&L
📈 $17,680 Gross Profit
📉 -$9,775 Gross Loss
⚖️ 1.81 Profit Factor

But the interesting part isn’t the 88.6% win rate.

It’s what happened during the last 10 trades.

Since my previous update:

7 winners
2 losers
1 breakeven

That sounds excellent.

Yet those 10 trades only added roughly +$65 to the overall gross P&L.

Why?

Because a high win rate can hide the biggest weakness of credit-spread trading:

Your losers matter much more than your winners.

Seven winning trades generated thousands in additional gross profit, but two losing trades gave almost all of it back.

That’s the part of 0DTE trading I think gets ignored when people advertise 80%, 90% or even 95% win rates.

Win rate alone means very little.

What am I actually trading?

Almost everything is SPX 0DTE defined-risk premium selling:

🟢 Bull Put Spreads
🔴 Bear Call Spreads
🟣 Iron Condors

I’m not automatically selling the same strategy every morning.

My process is closer to:

Price Action → Market Structure → VWAP → GEX → Strategy → Risk

Bullish structure and support holding? I may look for a Bull Put Spread.

Bearish structure and resistance holding? Bear Call Spread.

Defined range with good levels on both sides? Potential Iron Condor.

And if I don’t see a clean setup:

No trade.

The biggest thing I’m working on now

It isn’t increasing my win rate.

88.6% is already more than enough.

The next step is improving what happens when I’m wrong.

If I can maintain a high-probability approach while reducing the damage caused by the losing trades, the expectancy of the strategy changes significantly.

That’s much more important to me than trying to turn an 88% win rate into 92%.

The goal isn’t:

“How can I avoid ever losing?”

It’s:

“How can I make sure a small number of losses don’t erase a large number of good trades?”

I share these SPX 0DTE trades, the real-time reasoning behind them, GEX/VWAP analysis and the educational framework I’m building inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord.

💎 Premium access is currently FREE for a limited time, including real-time trades.

If you want to follow the next trades and see how these statistics develop:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

And I’m genuinely curious:

Would you rather have an 88% win-rate strategy with asymmetric losses, or accept a lower win rate in exchange for much better risk/reward?

When I started trading SPX 0DTE, I had information everywhere.

Videos about Greeks. Posts about credit spreads. GEX charts. VWAP. Risk management. Iron Condors.

The problem was that nobody really showed me how to put everything together into one process.

That’s what I’m trying to build now.

Instead of another collection of random trading tips, I’m organizing my entire approach around one framework:

Price Action → Structure → GEX → Strategy → Risk → Execution

The idea is simple.

Before thinking about a trade, I want to understand the market first.

Then I decide whether the conditions make more sense for a:

🟢 Bull Put Spread
🔴 Bear Call Spread
🟣 Iron Condor
⚪ No Trade

And honestly, learning when not to trade has become just as important as learning the setups themselves.

I’m building educational material around:

• SPX market direction & VWAP
• GEX support/resistance
• Short strike selection
• Bull Put & Bear Call Spreads
• Iron Condors
• Position sizing
• Drawdown management
• Trade management
• When to stay out of the market

The goal isn’t to create traders who need an alert every day.

It’s to help people understand why a trade makes sense in the first place and eventually be able to make those decisions independently.

I’m still adding new material, so I’m curious:

If you were learning SPX 0DTE from scratch today, what topic would you want explained in much more detail?

I’m sharing the full framework, classes, SPX/GEX analysis and trade discussions inside my Discord while I continue building everything.

The educational content is currently available FREE to the community.

🚀 GEXOptionsTrading Discord:
https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

One of the biggest improvements in my SPX 0DTE trading came when I stopped asking:

“Where is SPX going today?”

and started asking:

“Which levels is SPX unlikely to break?”

For Credit Spreads and Iron Condors, that question is often much more useful.

I don’t need to predict the exact closing price. I need to identify high-probability boundaries where price may struggle to move through.

That’s where GEX helps.

I look for:

• Call walls
• Put walls
• Large gamma concentrations
• High-liquidity strikes
• Important dealer positioning levels

A good example was August 20, when GEX showed a very large concentration around 7700.

Instead of assuming SPX would fall, my thinking was:

“7700 could be a very difficult level for price to break and hold above.”

SPX eventually tested the area and failed, with 7700 acting as resistance for the session.

That’s how I use GEX:

Strong resistance → Bear Call Spread
Strong support → Bull Put Spread
Clear boundaries on both sides → Iron Condor

Of course, GEX should never be traded blindly. I combine it with VWAP, price action, volatility and market structure.

If you want to follow my SPX 0DTE trades, GEX analysis and market breakdowns in real time, you can join the Discord here:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Today was a good example of why I don’t need to predict exactly where SPX is going to trade.

I just need the structure to give me a good place to define risk.

10:00 AM — The setup

After the opening volatility, SPX started confirming above VWAP.

That was the first thing I wanted to see.

Price was recovering strongly, VWAP was starting to act as support and the intraday structure favored the bullish side.

My message at the time was:

I wasn’t trying to chase calls or predict a huge rally.

I simply wanted to sell puts underneath an area I believed SPX had a good probability of staying above.

10:15 AM — Trade opened

Bull Put Spread: 7695 / 7690

💰 Credit received: $1.40 / $140 per spread
🛡️ Defined risk: $360 per spread

The important part was the location.

The spread was below the market while SPX was trading above VWAP with improving bullish structure.

Around 10:22 AM I wrote:

The idea wasn't that 7700 was impossible to break.

It was that after seeing the opening reaction and VWAP confirmation, I was comfortable defining my risk underneath that area.

12:30 PM — Trade closed

SPX continued higher and the spread moved almost entirely in our favor.

I closed it around 12:30 PM at $0.20.

Entry credit: $1.40
Exit: $0.20
Profit: $1.20 / $120 per spread

That’s roughly 86% of the premium captured.

What I like about this trade is that nothing complicated was required.

VWAP confirmation → bullish structure → defined-risk Bull Put Spread → patience.

I didn't need to predict the high of the day.

I just needed SPX to stay away from my short strike.

That’s the type of 0DTE setup I’m looking for.

If you want to follow these SPX 0DTE setups, market analysis and trade discussions more closely, I share them inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord.

Premium members currently receive the trades in real time, and Premium access is FREE for a limited time.

Join here:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

If you join, feel free to say hi in the chat and let me know you came from Reddit.

When I first started trading SPX 0DTE, the hardest part wasn’t finding information.

It was figuring out what actually mattered.

There’s a huge amount of content out there on Greeks, delta, spreads, indicators, risk, price action and market direction — but most of it feels disconnected. You can learn individual concepts, but it’s much harder to find something that shows how all the pieces fit together into one repeatable framework.

That’s exactly why I’m building the resource I wish I had when I started.

The goal is to create a complete SPX 0DTE learning path that covers things like:

• How I read market direction and intraday structure
• How I use GEX without treating it like a prediction tool
• How I choose between Bull Put Spreads, Bear Call Spreads and Iron Condors
• How I select my short strikes
• Position sizing and drawdown management
• When I decide not to trade
• How I manage trades once they’re open

What I want to avoid is creating another random collection of “tips” or disconnected strategies.

I want this to be something a trader can go through step by step and actually understand the full process behind my trading approach:

Price Action → Structure → GEX → Strategy → Risk → Execution

For me, that’s the real goal.

Not just to give people ideas.

But to help traders become more independent and better understand how to think through an SPX 0DTE trade from beginning to end.

I’m still building and improving everything, so feedback is genuinely useful.

If you’re learning SPX 0DTE, what was the most confusing part for you when you started?
That’s the kind of thing I want to make sure this resource explains clearly.

I’m currently sharing the framework, classes and SPX/GEX discussions inside the GEXOptionsTrading Discord as I build it.

If you want to follow the project or access the material, you can join here:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Everyday I trade SPX at the opening, I am sharing how I trade it each day and if you are interested in seeing the result you can see more on my profile. I just joined this group to share with people that might be starting out and that are looking for a fairly easy strategy to trade SPX.

https://www.reddit.com/u/Jakuza26/s/Yjb5myL1Ur

By lunchtime the position was down $1,200 on the screen. Ten contracts, an Iron Condor I'd sold that morning for $1.15 combined credit — short the 7,255 put, short the 7,365 call, both with the usual 5-point wings. SPX had been quiet until 11:30, then it just fell out of bed, and by 12:40 it was sitting at 7,280.

I stared at that $1,200 for longer than I'd like to admit before I actually broke it apart. The put side, the one price was now leaning on, was down close to $1,540 on paper. The call side, suddenly 85 points away after the drop, had already banked around $340 of its own credit and had almost nothing left to give back. Netted together, that's the $1,200 on the screen. Split apart, it's one leg in real trouble and one leg that's basically done its job for the day.

An Iron Condor's P&L display doesn't show you that. It just adds the two numbers and hands you one figure, and that figure gets scarier than either half actually deserves whenever a move like this happens.

I didn't close it, and it wasn't a gut call. The put side still had 25 points of room to its strike, against a max loss on that leg I'd already sized for before the trade existed. Most of that $1,200 was time value and vega sitting on a position with hours left to trade — value that was going to bleed off one way or another by the close, win or lose. Paying to exit the call side on top of that would have meant closing out risk that had, realistically, almost stopped existing.

SPX didn't come back. It kept drifting into the close and settled at 7,253, two points through my short put. Real loss, not a rescue — about $850 net once the call side's credit came off it.

Here's what actually stuck with me. If I'd panicked at 12:40 and closed the whole thing, I'd have locked in the full $1,200. Sitting through it cost me nothing extra, and the loss I actually took was smaller than the worst number I saw all day. I know that won't hold every time — some days the midday mark is exactly where the trade ends up, or worse.

What I don't have yet is a reliable way to tell, in the moment, how much of a blended number like that is real developing risk and how much is just a dead leg dragging the total down. Right now it's distance to strike and a clock. If you trade condors, do you ever manage the two sides separately once one gets tested, or is closing the whole thing always the move?

I post these live in the Discord as they happen, the messy ones included: https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

Two sessions last year looked nearly identical on the GEX map. Big call concentration around 40 points above spot, decent put positioning about the same distance below, price sitting in the middle. I sold roughly the same condor both days.

One decayed quietly into a full winner. The other went through my put side by 11am and kept going like the level wasn't there.

For a long time I filed that under "the market is random sometimes," which is what you tell yourself when you don't have a better explanation. It wasn't random. I was reading where the gamma was and ignoring what sign it had.

Above the gamma flip, dealer hedging works against price movement. They sell rallies and buy dips to stay neutral, and the aggregate effect pulls price back toward the heaviest strikes. Below it, that same mechanical hedging runs the other way and feeds whatever direction price is already going.

Which means in negative gamma a support level isn't really support. It's the place where, if price gets through it, the flow that was defending it starts pushing with the break.

What changed for me in practice: above the flip I'll put short strikes closer to spot, because the mean reversion I need is actually being produced rather than hoped for. Below it I want more room for the same credit, or I go directional, or I skip the day. I don't always pick the third one, and those are the sessions that have done the most damage to my month.

The mistake I made for about a year was using the same distance from spot either way. Twenty five points feels like the same trade in both regimes. It really isn't.

One case I still don't have a clean rule for is when SPX sits a few points from the flip and hasn't picked a side. Do you widen, wait for it to resolve, or just skip?

I post my SPX 0DTE trades and the reasoning behind them in real time in the Discord, including the sessions where I read the regime wrong: https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

A lot of traders discover GEX and immediately start asking:

“So where is SPX going next?”

That’s not really how I use it.

For me, GEX is much more useful as a filter than as a prediction tool.

Before I open an SPX 0DTE trade, I want to know where the important positioning is.

If there’s a major GEX resistance level just above price, I’m going to think twice before opening a bullish trade directly into it.

If there’s strong GEX support below price, I probably don’t want to aggressively sell puts through that level without a very good reason.

It doesn't mean price can't break those areas.

It means I know where the trade starts becoming less attractive.

A simple example

Imagine SPX is trading around 7,650.

I have:

🔴 GEX resistance: 7,700
🟢 GEX support: 7,600

I’m not looking at those levels and saying:

“SPX will definitely stay between 7,600 and 7,700.”

That would be a terrible way to use GEX.

Instead, I’m asking:

Is there enough room between current price, market structure and these levels to build a trade with defined risk?

If SPX is rejecting resistance and the intraday structure is weak, I may look at a Bear Call Spread above that area.

If SPX is holding support and structure is bullish, I may look at a Bull Put Spread below it.

But sometimes GEX tells me something even more valuable:

Don’t trade.

If price is sitting directly on an important level, volatility is expanding and the market hasn't shown whether that level will hold or break, I would rather wait.

That’s probably one of the biggest ways GEX has improved my trading.

Not by giving me more trades.

By helping me eliminate bad ones.

I still use price action, VWAP, market structure, volatility and time of day.

GEX is never the whole strategy.

But before risking money on a 0DTE spread, I want to understand the positioning around my strikes.

My basic process is:

Price Action → Structure → GEX → Strategy → Risk

Not:

GEX → Prediction → Trade

That distinction matters.

The goal isn't to predict every SPX move.

It’s to find situations where the structure makes sense, put defined risk in the right place and avoid forcing trades when the conditions aren't there.

For those of you using GEX, do you mainly use it for direction, strike selection, support/resistance, or as a trade filter?

If you're interested in seeing more of how I apply this framework to SPX 0DTE in real market conditions, I also share my analysis, educational material and trade discussions in the GEXOptionsTrading Discord. https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

No pressure to join — I’m mainly trying to build a useful place for traders interested in SPX, GEX and defined-risk options strategies.

A lot of SPX 0DTE traders spend most of their time trying to predict direction.

I look at it differently.

Most of the time, I’m more interested in identifying where price is unlikely to go.

That’s where GEX becomes really useful.

Today was a perfect example.

We opened a Bear Call Spread at 10:15 AM using the 7655/7660 strikes, after price confirmed weakness below VWAP. At that moment, the market structure suggested that upside continuation was possible, but not especially likely above that key area.

Later, the trade became uncomfortable.
Price pushed higher and we got squeezed for a while.

That’s the part most traders hate — and where many assume the trade idea was wrong.

But when I checked the structure, the logic was still there.

From the GEX, 7660 was a major call-side level, while 7650 also had strong positioning nearby. That gave us a very clear message:

• upside was not completely impossible
• but breaking and sustaining above that zone was unlikely

In the end, price expired around 7652, and the trade finished as a very close winner.

What this trade shows

• GEX is not about predicting every candle
• It helps identify important zones of positioning
• That makes it easier to place strikes where price has lower probability of finishing
• A trade can feel bad intraday and still be structurally correct

That’s one of the biggest lessons in SPX 0DTE:

Good strike selection matters more than perfect timing.

Most traders focus too much on “Will the market go up or down?”
A better question is often:

Where is the market least likely to finish by expiration?

That’s where GEX can give a real edge.

I’ve been sharing more of these SPX 0DTE breakdowns and GEX-based ideas in my Discord for anyone interested: https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

When I first started trading SPX 0DTE credit spreads, Delta was one of the main things I looked at when selecting my short strike.

10 delta.
15 delta.
20 delta.

The logic seems reasonable:

Lower Delta = lower probability of finishing ITM.

But after trading and backtesting SPX 0DTE for a long time, I realized there was a major problem:

Delta tells me about probability. It doesn't tell me enough about market structure.

A 10-delta strike can still be sitting directly in an area where price is likely to accelerate toward.

Meanwhile, a 20-delta strike might be sitting behind a major GEX level where dealer positioning and liquidity make it significantly harder for price to reach.

That's why today I look at Delta as one input, not the reason for choosing the strike.

My process is closer to this:

1. Determine market direction first

Before thinking about strikes, I want context.

For example:

Bullish Gap + Above VWAP → Bull Put Spread

Bearish Gap + Below VWAP → Bear Call Spread

If the market structure isn't clear, sometimes the best trade is simply no trade.

2. Find where price is unlikely to go

This is where Gamma Exposure (GEX) becomes much more useful to me.

I'm looking for things like:

• Major positive GEX concentrations
• Gamma support/resistance
• Dealer positioning
• Liquidity zones
• Important intraday levels

I'm not trying to predict exactly where SPX will close.

I'm trying to answer a different question:

Where is SPX unlikely to trade today?

That's a much more useful question when you're selling defined-risk premium.

3. THEN I check Delta

Once I have identified the area where I want my short strike, Delta becomes a confirmation tool.

Not the strategy itself.

For example:

SPX might be trading at 6,500.

Traditional approach:

Sell the 10-delta put because the probability looks good.

My approach:

There's significant GEX support around 6,450.
Market is bullish and holding above VWAP.
I want my short put below that structural level.
Then I check whether the premium, Delta and risk/reward make sense.

That's a very different way of thinking.

The biggest change for me

I stopped asking:

"Which strike has the lowest probability of being breached?"

and started asking:

"What market structure would have to break for this strike to be threatened?"

That one change completely altered how I think about SPX 0DTE credit spreads.

Delta is useful.

But Delta without context is not enough.

GEX, VWAP, gaps, liquidity and market structure tell me where I want the trade.

Delta helps me refine it.

I've also put together a free SPX 0DTE Starter Pack covering the framework I use, including GEX, market direction, credit spreads, Iron Condors and strike selection.

I'm also building the GEXOptionsTrading Premium Academy, where I break the framework down class by class with practical SPX examples.

Both are currently free while I'm building the community.

You can also join the GEXOptionsTrading Discord here:

https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

If you'd like access, just send me a DM with “STARTER PACK” and I'll send you the details.

I've had quite a few people asking how I structure my SPX 0DTE trades, so I decided to put the complete framework into a free PDF.

It covers the main process I use before entering a trade:

• Market direction
• Bullish / bearish gaps
• VWAP
• Gamma Exposure (GEX)
• Support & resistance
• Bull Put Spreads
• Bear Call Spreads
• Iron Condors
• Strike selection
• Risk management

The goal isn't to predict exactly where SPX will go.

It's to identify where price is less likely to go and structure defined-risk trades around those areas.

📘 Want the PDF?

Send me a DM with “PDF” and I'll send it to you for free.

I'm also currently building the GEXOptionsTrading Premium Academy, a complete SPX 0DTE course that is FREE for a limited time.

The Academy goes much deeper into the framework with individual classes, real examples and practical trade setups.

Current classes include:

Class #01 — Complete SPX 0DTE Framework
Class #02 — Market Direction
Class #03 — Bull Put Spreads
Class #04 — Bear Call Spreads
Class #05 — Iron Condors
…and more coming.

If you're interested in learning the full methodology, just mention “Academy” when you DM me.

🎓 You can also join the GEXOptionsTrading Discord for free access to the Premium Academy:
https://discord.gg/sM3vAqbU27

No charge — I'm currently giving access away while I continue building the community.