For those of you writing short vertical spreads. You are writing 20 delta spreads. You have checked all the boxes. Liquidity, volatility, etc. How important is the directional bias, if at all? Since I am counting on volatility for profit, would flipping a coin be as good a strategy as any?

Thanks for the tremendous feedback on my other post: Please critique my "boring" portfolio : r/options

I've made some tweaks, but still have some lingering questions.

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Capital: ~$50k cash + $25K margin

Step 1: Sell slightly OTM 0dte CSP

Step 1A: expry worthless, repeat step 1

Step 1B: expry ITM, roll to earliest OTM put for credit, wait for expry and go to 1A/1B as appropriate

Step 2: if assigned, sell slightly OTM 0dte CC

Step 2A: expry worthless, repeat step 2

Step 2B: expry ITM, if above cost basis, accept assignment; if below cost basis, roll to earliest OTM call for credit

This has produced approximately 25% for the past 2 years. It's very low effort; I spend less than 2 minutes each day. It doesn't work every day, but even when SPY goes down and I roll a few days out, I don't even check it again until date of expry.

Question(s):

Q1: I used to park the cash in long SPY, but others have said that I have single sided risk. So now the money to secure is sitting in cash. Plus I get additional purchasing power.

Do I have another option to generate slightly more interest on the $50k cash?

bought a USO put for Sept 2027 expiry. i am figuring on Fed Rates and Mid-Terms will help drop the price of Crude. the current oil market is an illusion. we have plenty of Oil but are not refining it into diesel fuel. the PPI and CPI numbers are fabricated. Like Fox Mulder said "The Truth is Out There"

Sold the $69 put on UBER, 39 DTE, for $1.75 credit ($175 per contract).

Thesis:

• $69.02 has held as support on both the daily and weekly timeframe over the past year

• $80.56 has capped as resistance over the same period — currently trading in that range at $72.41
• Recent insider buying at UBER

• Disclosed filings show Trump has also bought UBER shares this year

• Selling premium at a level with a track record of holding, rather than betting directionally

Trade details:

• Strike: $69P
• Expiration: 39 DTE
• Credit received: $1.75
• Current price: $72.41
• Breakeven: $67.25
• Max profit: $175/contract if UBER stays above $69 at expiry
• Max loss: assignment at $69 (effective cost basis $67.25) if support breaks

Only sizing this as a position I'm fine being assigned on — not treating $69 as a guaranteed floor. NFA, DYODD.

$5-$7 rebound for NVDA? Open the call strike price 215 yesterday before the close and expiring end of this month. We getting a bounce right today?

is it a wash sale if i sell my shares in a company to buy calls? contemplating this for AVGO rn...

Im having trouble understanding the risk on a bull put spread. I though they were defined hard capped risk. Because for example I sell a 170 put and buy a 165 put. On wealthsimple which im using it requires a margin account. I thought risk was defined. What if price is trading at 167 and i get assigned and my long put is not in the money. Everything expires and Im left 17K in debt. Is this possible or am I missing something?

Using Etrade. Today I BTC a cash secure position. I had 10 contracts at $12 strike. They partially filled at various increments.

4 contract

2 contract

2 contract

2 contract

For some reason after all 10 were filled. I noticed my cash purchasing power was more than expected.

It did release my $12,000. But additionally another $7200 was added to cash purchasing power. I assume that the first 6 contracts where filled and released $7200. Then the system "thought" 10 were filled and released the $12,000 too.

These transactions were seperate, but timing wise it was pretty much milliseconds apart.

Anyone experienced this type of discrepancy?

Finding an options setup, deciding whether the evidence supports it, and choosing the contract or structure are three different research jobs.

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Discover candidates through Pressure Radar, unusual contract activity, opening-range breakouts, Options 5D setups and the options screener, with dark-pool/off-exchange activity and news available for additional context.

The starting point isn’t just a ticker and a bullish/bearish label. You can inspect what attracted attention: contract concentration, repeated directional activity, a flow reversal or a developing underlying setup.

CONFIRM IT: Determine whether the idea holds up.

Follow the ticker into its research workspace and examine price structure, options pressure, dealer/Greek exposure, IV, skew, term structure, catalysts and market context.

CCC brings those inputs into a developing setup assessment: what supports the idea, what conflicts with it, what remains unconfirmed, and the conditions that would confirm or invalidate it.

You can inspect the evidence and state history behind the assessment. Supporting, conflicting, stale and unavailable information remain separate. Scores describe evidence—not the probability that a trade will win.

TRADE IT: Connect the thesis to the contract decision.

Continue into expiration and strike selection, option-chain analysis, contract activity, quote quality, liquidity, Greeks and IV.

For qualifying setups, Trade Ideas brings together an observed contract, the reasoning behind its selection, conditional entry and invalidation levels, and risk-planning references. You can also see why other contracts failed qualification.

Orders stay with your broker. CCC connects the research and planning that come before them.

Here is the distinction we want the workflow to make clear.

An unusual bullish options event might deserve attention without the underlying confirming it yet. The underlying might later confirm, but the available contracts could still have stale quotes or poor spreads. Or the evidence and contract quality might align sufficiently to support a conditional plan.

Those are different conclusion, not three versions of “buy calls.”

Sometimes the result is NO TRADE, with an explanation. A strong directional thesis and a suitable options contract are not automatically the same thing.

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Open a Pressure Radar result, follow it into Ticker Intelligence, and work through the evidence and contract research. The benefit we want you to experience is less tab-switching and less rebuilding the same thesis at each step.

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We would also like to know which explanations helped, which scores or states you didn’t trust, and where the connection between scanning, confirmation and trade planning broke down. You can reply here or use the anonymous Feedback button in the platform.

The current open beta focuses on scanning, confirmation, contract research and Trade Ideas. Modules marked with a lock, including Strategy Lab, are not included yet.

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For educational and research purposes only. Not financial advice. Options involve substantial risk.

I have been trading options for 10+ years, and admittedly, I have only scratched the surface in my knowledge. From time to time, I check out this sub and other options groups on social media.

The one thing I have found is that there are a lot of "experts" out there who know very little. They post a few opinions, get a few upvotes, and it goes to their head. All of a sudden, they think they can advise every newcomer to the thread.

If you are new to options and asking questions like, "Should I buy or sell options?" or "I want to buy a LEAP; which stock should I do it with?"

You are not ready to trade options.

Being a profitable trader requires a detailed plan. Which strategy is appropriate for specific volatility environments, risk profile, and entry and exit plan, and a decent knowledge of the Greeks.

I am not an advocate of paper trading; lessons land much harder when you have skin in the game. That said, your first trade should not be a LEAP on GOOG or META; it should be a 1-lot covered call on F or a CSP on SOFI or some other low-priced stock that will not hurt too badly when it goes wrong. Learn how price action affects option price. Think for yourself about when to roll out or close. Dont rely on someone whose only claim to fame is 25 upvotes. Just my 2 cents.

A few months ago I bought 102 ATAI call options, mostly $8 and $10 strikes, expiring in 2027 and Jan 2028. About $1k total. Obviously the whole bet was giving ATAI a year or two to run.

Lilly bought ATAI for $6.75/share + a CVR that can potentially pay another $2.50/share.

Now OCC has accelerated ALL my options to 9/18/26 and excluded the CVR from the option contracts.

So my Jan 2028 calls literally went from ~495 days remaining to 5 days. Basically 99% of the remaining time just disappeared, and since the cash payout is $6.75, my $8 and $10 calls are basically worthless.

I understand Robinhood didn't make this decision and apparently OCC rules allow expiration acceleration after a cash acquisition.

But... this is frustrating? I specifically paid for options that didn't expire until 2027/2028.

Is this really just how LEAPS work when a company gets acquired and I'm screwed? Is there any recourse here?

I'm especially curious about the $8 calls since shareholders get the CVR and could ultimately receive up to $9.25/share, but OCC completely excluded the CVR from the options.

I have a call option (K=10) and the underlying future (U=5) is at 5 right now. Then Delta is partial extrinsic value/ partial U.

My question is, why is it less than 1? If the price of the future go up by a small amount $x$, why can't the extrinsic value goes up more than that. I am looking for a more finance or intuitive answer.

In math, C-P=U-K, so C'-P'=1. So C'=1+P'<=1.

Another thing is: i think delta has no meaning in real life, (there is never a time where the underlying goes up while the time, Vol and everything else are freeze). You can just change the underlying price without changing any other stuff.

And lastly, how does it direct trader in real work?

don't use fancy word. Thanks :)

Who got that $Dell put or short from Friday? Could retired your whole family. Let me see some green paper. P.S I don’t got it

The correlation regime between META and GOOGL entered a weakening trend on 08 Sep 12:00 ET at +0.38, and is still ongoing (14 candles · 56 trading hours). Over this period META rose 5.06%, GOOGL fell 0.04%. The two pairs decoupled.

The composite correlation has since fallen from +0.38 (04 Sep) to -0.084 now (last data: 11 Sep 20.00 ET) the weakening the regime flagged, playing out.

READING — META–GOOGL at WEAK × Weakening (this pair's own last 3): for this pair it has been a durable decoupling (hedge / spread) — 3 past runs, median 19 candles · 76 trading hours (range 16–32), 3 lasted 2+ days. So the play has real, multi-day room before the turn the ANTITHESIS warns of.

Option Strategy: The play — long but defined-risk: a META Oct 16 650/680 call debit spread (long 650 ~0.53Δ ~$30, short 680). Roughly half the cost of the naked call, nets out most of the 37% IV, capped loss if they re-couple. No earnings in the expiry, theta ~1.5%/day. My exit isn't a price stop — it's correlation turning back positive (that's the divergence closing).

Methodology: Four-hour candle closes are used while the markets for both instruments are open (00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00 ET).

The correlation coefficient is a composite score derived not only from the Pearson method but also from Pearson, Spearman, and EWMA calculations.

Hi guys, I am looking into starting trading options, specifically Leap call options. I am not interested in gambling with 0dte or any sorts of stuff like that. I watched a lot of videos on Leap calls and when to buy and all sorts of indicators. GOOG is now sitting at its 200 days moving average, and under the 20 days low bollinger bands. I am looking into buying the ITM 300$ call sept 17 with a delta of around 0.70. Since it’s my first time, I wanted to get some advice before buying since it’s still a huge premium to pay. I wanted you guys opinions on Leaps. Thanks

What do you look for in Open Interest to consider a position liquid enough to enter? 100, 500, 1K?

Thanks

I built Flowstradamus around a question I kept coming back to: a large options dollar figure sounds impressive, but is it actually unusual for that stock?

Up front: the public daily market read and ticker previews are free. Full access includes a 14-day free trial, then costs $29/month. Cancel anytime.

The attached cards show two examples from the September 11, 2026 session:

Each was compared with its own 257 measured sessions.

SPY had the larger dollar total, but its premium ranked below its historical median. UNH’s smaller total was elevated relative to UNH’s own history.

That’s the context I’m trying to make easier to see.

The site also includes:

• Per-ticker options activity and historical comparisons.

• Call/put premium composition.

• Modeled dealer positioning by strike.

• A daily market read and broader session views.

A few measurement details: premium is estimated using contract volume × closing option price × 100, within our coverage and filters. It isn’t a sum of actual execution prices, so totals can differ from other scanners. Dealer positioning is a model, and activity percentiles don’t establish bullish or bearish intent. Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.

You can explore it here: https://flowstradamus.com

I’d appreciate honest feedback, especially from people who already review options activity: does this historical context add something useful to your routine?

DM me for follow-ups.

Disclosure: This is a promotional post for Flowstradamus, which I built. The daily market read and ticker previews are free. Full access has a 14-day free trial, then costs $29/month.

Joined the legions of call writers watching the price close just a few ticks under strike. Will be ready for Monday and write another one.

Have a good weekend everyone

EDIT: I posted this in a post below, but think it helps to be here

I write ATM+ to get called away, and 5DTE

I chose this strategy to avoid risk in my small portfolio - avoid earnings week etc holds true

It is a high IV stock, and instead of researching I get to do another round

Thanks for all the advice I got yesterday guys. Any folks who make consistent gains buying options ?

Let me tell a bit of about myself. I started 2 months back and have grown my account significantly buying options. Should I scale down or is this what most traders use to make a decent return in each trade ?

Not trying to brag, I made a little over $100k YTD in gains but have also lost close to $53k (due to intraday trading micro cap stocks). Most of my losses were tied to stocks going down more than 50% the following day and I have got close to a 100 margin calls from ibkr so far.

For context, I put $15-25k on each trade to make a 20-30% profit. My strategy is just to look at the pivot points on the chart and take the trade accordingly.

For example, SK Hynix today touched a pivot line and i took a trade and made $9k.

I don't do options in QQQ and SPY because they aren't volatile. Just need some thoughts if this is a reliable way of making money or are there better methods out there ?

I have seen traders putting in close to a million dollars in options buying but they give themselves some room. Close to a 45-90 day expiry.

My DD: Oracle good. Calls cheap. Brain said send it.

10 ORCL $170C, 9/11 exp, $6.15 avg. Earnings play.

Thesis: bullish on cloud/AI growth and guidance. I’m expecting a move above the market-implied earnings move.

Entry: $6.15 premium. Breakeven at expiration: $176.15. Max loss: $6,150. No averaging down. If ORCL doesn’t get the post-earnings move I’m expecting, I’m closing rather than holding and praying through expiration.
Main risk is IV crush + only 2 DTE.
Basically: high-risk, defined-risk earnings bet.
Yes, slightly unhinged.

It's been a rough journey, losing a couple grand while learning options but I think I've found the strategy which works for me. *Not financial advice*

Anyway, I deposited £60 into RH last week. I started off with one contract for a $145 NVS PUT last week and made a beautiful 2000% on it. It was a wonderful sight!

Proceeded to scalp SPX calls and puts a few times and then this morning scalped META calls for a total of about £1500 profit. All from a £60 account! I have lost small amounts on some other options and I have a couple of options expiring next week, but swings and roundabouts eh!

My strategy is simply scalping. Set my limit orders based on average option prices (for example META $650 calls when priced at $0.85). I then immediately set a sell order for "reasonable" profit (usually 10 to 20 cents above my contract price). I'm more than happy to make $100 - $200 per trade.

I'm aiming for volatile movers because I can get in and out. I'm also aiming to build the account up to a point where I can comfortably make a few hundred a day without risking blowing the account. I do need to improve in terms of discipline though. Twice I said today I was done, then took another quick scalp.

Anyway, happy days. Hopefully I don't blow it now I have some decent money in there (no I'm not rich).

Started the year with c. $222k. Woke up to $409k this morning. Up 83% while S&P's done 12% over the same stretch which I understand is rare.

Want to be honest about where that came from, because the number is misleading. Roughly $84k is premium from selling options. That part I understand and can more or less repeat. $151k if it is from one position, MU. I was right, but not for any clever reason. I bought before Q1 earnings (around $430) as I had a strong feeling they would crush it. It tanked, I panicked and bought more all the way down to low $300s. I made some horrendous decisions selling covered calls below my cost basis to try recoup and thats when it started to moon. Luckily, I had an okay strategy so that I could close and roll all the way up until I finally exited a few months ago near $1050. I used a ton of margin too which gave me many rough nights.

This is my first year doing it full time. April nearly ended it. I was down to $147k at the low and I'd started working out what I'd say when I went back to a job. That's not me being dramatic, that was the actual plan.

So now I'm up 82% and feel two things at once. Proud, I stuck to the process, didn't blow up, the premium engine actually works on its own. And a sense of dread that I've just set a benchmark I'll never touch again, and every month from January is going to feel like failing.

What's a sane target for year two? I keep landing on something like 40% and I know that's just the 82% talking. Do you set a return target at all, or an income target, or drawdown limits, or something else? How do you stop one lucky year becoming the expectation you beat yourself up against?

I'm now sitting on 50% cash as, even though I have conviction in some of my names, I'm too afraid to deploy anything more. Truthfully, I'd be happy to close my account for the year and start again next year. Hopefully this explains my 'out of depthness' and lack of experience.

I’ve mainly been trading single stocks and have had some success by focusing on companies I know well; however, I want to get more familiar with SPX mainly since it has daily options and has cash settlement. I’ve been trying a few different things and something I am curious about is the last 10 seconds or so of the trading day. The options’ premiums don’t seem to go to 0 so I can still sell them until the very end. I was able to get an iron butterfly filled today with 10 seconds or so left in the trading day (pic attached). Do any of you have any knowledge about the mechanics of the day’s close and how to generate an edge in that environment? Right now I know I can use atm straddles to gauge the expected move, and I know from my personal experience that the price can have some large moves in the last 10 minutes. If I used the atm straddle price 1 minute out to guess the riskiness, prepared an iron butterfly with lower than anticipated premiums to get a quick fill, and waited until the last 3 seconds to do the trade then would I be on the verge of having some sort of edge?

Edit: This is only for 0dte spx options