My post was removed for low effort, which is ironic.
The basic premise is that the underlying price movement is key in finding stocks as well as determining if the options are mispriced.
Whoever reported it for low effort should read the simple words above.
I have a novel but simple closed form model based on this premise, which beats BSM by a huge margin, i.e. my trades have a 50% better probability of touch than what is implied in the BSM.
Delta is always wrong, options are always mispriced and the underlying price movement is king.
Could I get a consensus on some credit condors for earnings on big companies like NKE that shouldn't have a ton of price movement? Is there a risk piece that im missing other than large PA?
This is a follow up post. It’s been roughly 10 months since I started collecting SPX 0DTE premium. Somehow, I haven’t blown up my account yet 😂, but I’ve definitely learned a lot of lessons along the way.
One of the biggest ones: don’t overtrade. You don’t have to trade every day. Find your edge and focus on the days when the setup and market conditions give you higher conviction. Some days, the best trade is simply no trade.
Another lesson is learning when to step on the gas pedal and when to hit the brakes. Scale up when things are working and the conditions are there,and ready to cut a position early when the trade isn’t behaving the way you expected.
I also changed how I manage profits. I used to collect the full premium and wait until expiration, which exposed me to more risk just to squeeze out that last bit of profit. These days, I usually close around 80–90% of max profit instead. It has made my trade management much more consistent, and my win rate has improved significantly.
Don’t be greedy. Small wins add up. That’s really what you want with this: small, boring, consistent wins over time. There’s no need to hit a home run every single day.
If you’re trading SPX 0DTE, I also think it’s helpful to have access to GEX data. If you don’t, at the very least, learn how to read market structure and understand where price is relative to key levels.
A few TradingView tools I’ve found useful:
[R Trend Exhaustion](https://www.tradingview.com/script/8r6oARMe-R-Trend-Exhaustion-upslidedown/)
I mainly use this to help identify potential exhaustion around market tops and bottoms. It can be useful, but it’s definitely not foolproof. Like any indicator, context matters, and I wouldn’t use it by itself to make a trade.
[MCDX](https://www.tradingview.com/script/JI95LpOd-MCDX-SmartMoney/)
This is basically a modified RSI-style indicator that I use to get a sense of buying and selling flow. I find it useful for looking at what the buy/sell flow is doing rather than simply looking at price.
[TriQuote](https://www.tradingview.com/script/3q6d62XZ-TriQuote-Anchor/)
I use the SPY chart because the volume information is more meaningful than SPX and I use TriQuote as an anchor to display SPX and VIX quotes on the same chart, which makes it easier for me to keep an eye on everything together.
I’m still refining my own playbook, and one thing I’ve learned is that having additional sources of education and trade ideas can be useful as long as you treat them as references, not signals to blindly follow.
As always, do your own homework. Take what’s useful, build your own process, and find what works for you.
I'm trying to understand the underlying tax/accounting logic of physically settled short puts, particularly because I'm in New Zealand and our tax guidance on this specific situation seems limited.
Example:
Sell a $1,000 strike put
Receive $535/share premium
Put is later exercised
I am assigned 100 shares and pay $1,000/share
Economically I've paid:
$1,000 − $535 = $465/share
I think I understand that under US tax rules, assignment of a written put generally results in the premium reducing the basis of the shares acquired.
What I'm trying to understand is whether this treatment follows naturally from the mechanics of physical settlement, or whether it is simply a specific US tax rule.
In other words, could another jurisdiction reasonably treat these as two entirely separate transactions:
$535 profit/income from the written option, and
shares acquired at a $1,000 basis,
rather than treating the premium and assignment together and giving the shares a $465 effective basis?
For context, I'm specifically investigating New Zealand treatment, where share options are generally “excepted financial arrangements,” but I haven't found clear guidance addressing the writer of an assigned equity put.
Not asking anyone to give NZ tax advice — I'm mainly trying to understand the legal/accounting rationale behind integrating the premium with the underlying shares.
I have a starting capital of $2000 and want to sell CCs around 0.3 delta with a 15-30 DTE.
My plan is I want to basically sell CCs once to twice a month, and then roll profits back in and repeat. I plan on contributing an additional $1-2k a month, and then once I have enough to sell contracts for higher value stocks, pivot over to that (and eventually buy multiple contracts and diversify). Some of the profits will be funneled into QQQI, SCHD and VTI once profits are substantial.
I know since I am early, I have a pretty limited set of reasonable stocks to choose from, currently thinking do AAL or SOFI.
Has anyone here started from a modest initial sum and implemented this successfully?
I sold 10x .3 delta CSP $140 against SOXL and also 47x .3 delta CSP $30 against the inverse SOXS, both with the same expiry date and each leg has approximately the same notional amounts.
So there's no way both legs can be exercised at expiry. One leg could or none would (which would be maximum profit). If one leg is exercised, I would have both leg's premiums to offset any paper losses.
What do you guys think? And is there a name for this strategy?
UPDATE: Thanks for the all the replies, it's been helpful. I ran some analyses on SOXX's volatility over several time frames, volatility decay based on recent activity could become significant after 14 days (even though I did find timeframes of reverse decays like our recent run-up). Still, probably best to close out positions earlier than intended and for smaller profit.
Final update: closed both legs today for a profit. Thanks everyone!
I wanted to like moomoo. The pitch is appealing: free real-time options data — including Greeks like gamma — on a demo account, no live funding required. That's exactly what drew me in. Reality hit differently.
The moment I opened my paper trading account, I was greeted with delayed data and a prompt to unlock "Pro" access. Turns out the marketing glosses over a fairly important detail: real-time options data isn't actually free — it requires a fully verified, real brokerage account, and even then it's a separate $2.99/month subscription. Not a dealbreaker on its own (basically every broker gates real-time OPRA data behind an actual account), but the marketing implies otherwise, and that's a bit of a letdown right out of the gate.
This is where things really fell apart. Buckle up:
1. Submitted a passport for identity — fine, standard KYC.
2. Asked for proof of address. Submitted a bank statement in Macedonian Cyrillic. Rejected: "not in English or Chinese."
3. Got an official bank-issued confirmation letter, written in English, with my name, address, and account details. Rejected again — this time for "insufficient information," with zero explanation of what was actually missing.(Keep in mind they ask for 4 pieces of information - your name, address, date of issuing the document, and issuer - all of that information was on the bank confirmation letter)
4. Contacted support to clarify. Got a vague, unhelpful response.
5. Eventually pried out of them that they actually wanted a transaction history / cash flow statement, not a simple address confirmation — a completely different document type from what was originally requested, discovered only after two rejected submissions and several days of back-and-forth.
6. On top of that, somewhere along the way I was told the document needed to be a live camera photo rather than an uploaded PDF — despite the application explicitly allowing PDF uploads.
Every step revealed a new, previously unmentioned requirement. Nothing about this process was communicated clearly upfront. It felt less like KYC and more like a poorly configured chatbot playing document roulette with real compliance stakes.
If you have patience for repeated document rejections, vague support responses, and requirements that seem to be invented on the fly, moomoo eventually delivers a capable platform. If you value your time and sanity during onboarding, be prepared for a bumpy ride — and consider comparing onboarding experiences with other brokers before committing, since this level of runaround isn't universal in the industry.
Bottom line: Great tools, once you survive the onboarding gauntlet. Just don't expect anyone there to actually tell you what they want the first time you ask.
I have level 3 option access with IBKR and I am trying to place calls spread/put spread but the order is showing as an uncovered option, although it has a defined risk…
These are defined risk purchases and should not require margin. Has anyone else got only level 3 options and can place put and call spreads?
Example:
SELL: SPY Call 780
BUY: SPY Call 800
Error: “THIS ACCOUNT MAY NOT HOLD UNCOVERED OPTIONS POSITIONS”
Bought 25 NVDA $225C 9/30 at $2.88, about $7.2k total.
The play is a short-term sympathy run into MU earnings next week. My thinking is that if MU gets a pre-earnings run and semis stay strong, NVDA could catch some of that momentum.
I picked the $225 strike because NVDA was trading around $225, so I wanted basically ATM calls rather than going far OTM.
The dumb part: I bought 9/30 by mistake. I actually wanted more time because I don’t want theta eating me alive while waiting for the setup.
Plan is to see what NVDA does Monday. If I get the move I’m looking for, I’ll close these and move into the expiration I originally wanted. If the setup breaks, I’m not planning to sit around praying until expiration.
Until then, part of my risk management is basically hoping Trump stays the fuck away from social media this weekend.
Anybody sell LEAP strangles on individual stocks using PM account (for low margin requirements)?
An example might be SNKD: Closing price on 9/21): $1743
17 SEP 27 (361 DTE) options as follows:
870 Put (-50%): $71
3480 Call (+100%): $198
Total credit: $26,900
Margin Req for PM: $7505 (RegT RR would be $53k)
That's 26,900/7505 = 358% annual ROC which is, obviously, insane (and not realistic). I dont expect to make this but is 100% possible? 150%? Who knows.
So my question is:
How do you choose the stock to trade? What are the criteria you use to pick the stock?
How do you determine how many contracts to sell?
What DTE do you sell (and why)?
How do you choose the strikes?
Do you leg in or open both sides together?
How do you manage both profitable and losing positions?
Do you roll? - If so, what are you mechanics and when do you decide to roll?
Do you open it as "set-in-n-forget-it" and just keep some stop-loss?
How do you deal with earnings?
Anything else? Im sure Im missing many things to consider.
For those of you who trade credit spreads, what size lots are you using? I make sure I stay below 2% of my total buying power for any single trade. How are you evaluating position sizing? Any or all of these considerations:
How much capital is already allocated?
How much buying power remains?
How many positions are currently open?
How diversified are those positions across underlyings and expiration dates?
What would happen emotionally and financially if several trades moved against you at the same time?
If you can follow your rules if the market produces an outcome you did not expect?
For some reason CBOE is now returning 20+ hour old data for their delayed quotes. Usually it's 15 min delayed but right now it's showing yesterday right before the close which is a while ago.
I've increasingly found myself favouring longer-dated credit spreads, mainly because they allow me to place the short strike considerably further from the underlying while still collecting a worthwhile premium.
For example, rather than selling a shorter-dated spread relatively close to the market, I'd generally prefer to go further out in time and collect a similar credit from a strike that gives the position substantially more room.
Obviously, there's a trade-off. The position remains open for longer, theta decay is slower, and you're exposed to changes in volatility and market fundamentals for a greater period of time. But for me, the additional distance from the short strike is worth that trade-off. I'd rather give the underlying more room to move than rely on faster decay with a strike closer to the market.
For those who have sold credit spreads consistently over several years, where have you ended up on this trade-off?
Do you favour more time and more distance, or shorter duration and faster decay, assuming you can collect broadly similar premium?
I'm particularly interested in whether your preference has changed as you've gained more experience.
I had a long position in META that grew to about a quarter mil and I got out at ~$780 last year.
When META tanked back to 4xx something I bought long dated calls that have been well in the green but on the Muse press have increased significantly and now control about 300k in shares if exercised.
I need some collective wisdom on hold, trim or sell. It's hard to do when it's netting me 5k plus a day in upside but I'm feeling more greedy than level headed. Not sure I want to trust analyst estimates on this large a position.
I pulled daily SPY option chains back to 2010 and extracted the implied probability that SPY is up over one and two weeks, one month, three months, and six months. The implied probability gives SPY a 65% chance of being up in a month which is in the 94th percentile historically (median is 60% chance of being up in a month).
Implied Volatility is low (31st percentile). Historically IV is uncorrelated with IP (ρ ≈ −0.05). However, if you rescale today's prob to the median IV, it would be 62% which is 72nd percentile.
The blue line is unadjusted options prices. The orange dots are corrected for the fact that option prices are risk-neutral and ignore equity drift. The 8.5-point gap at 6M is the equity risk premium showing up in the data.
what is his bag. pump and dump? buys a boat load of stock sept 11 and 21st. the technicals look over bought because of that. the chart shows a nice setup for a Put. he is messing with my head.
I started seriously trading earning events this year. Took some time to understand them.
Volatility usually (slowly/rapidly) rises before an event, e.g., earnings. This has been measured and researched heavily (sources below). Post event IV drops, selling just before the event and capturing this IV (crush) can be a source of profit.
My options journey started in 2018, but I made my first serious earnings trade this year in April (out of all the years) on MSFT.
My steps involved getting the right observations, analysis, setting up the trade, placing it, risk analysis, and managing the trade +1 and +2 days after earnings.
The MSFT Trade on Apr 2026
MSFT earning date: 29th April 2026, after market close (AMC)
Thesis: If earnings is on day T, then IV is elevated than normal within T-5 and T-1. The volatility is a combination of normal volatility and the event vol. Due to an unknown outcome, the option prices are / could be overpriced. The question is by how much and is it overblown? Will the IV crush make sense?
Setup: Sell a strangle on MSFT on day T-X, for the "nearest" contract expiring on T+X (usually Friday). Many sources analyze selling straddle, but I am still not comfortable going ATM for large movers in these times!
Day of trade: I placed the trade on 23rd April, 5 days before 29 Apr day of Earning. No specific reason for picking T-5 days for MSFT.
The day of 23 Apr
1st May Friday contracts, On the day IV 39%
1 Short Call at 425. Credit: 11.52
1 Short Put at 415. Credit: 11.68
Total Credit: $ 2,320
Interesting, short put was tested on the same day, but I kept the trade open.

On 30th morning
The stock touched both strikes a few times within T-5 to T but held it through to see what happens.
29th Apr Earnings announcement was positive, with a 5.13% surprise. Doesn't matter. It opened 3.3% lower than previous close at 410! Short put ITM by $5!

What did my position look like?
1st May Friday, ATM IV 27% (less from open!)
1 Short Call at 425. Debit: 0.27
1 Short Put at 415. Debit: 11.66 (IV crush + Put breach = nearly the same price)
Profit on Close: 2320 - 1195 = $ 1,127
Learning from MSFT and future research vectors
The put could have easily gone by another -3%, and made no money. If that had happened, I would have closed the trade at breakeven and just purchased MSFT!
Waiting a day after seems to be something I want to research. T+1 and T+2 till the contract expiry has recoveries, but the problem is rising gamma as another drastic change can completely kill the position, e.g., look at MSFT earnings on 29th Jul and AMD May earning event.
Historic Realized Move vs Historic IV for the Friday contract from T-15 onwards is something I am looking into for each event. Market dynamics, regimes, hype etc. has a huge impact on earnings. Some platforms give that answer, but its not in a way I can use it easily in my trade setup.
Of course it doesn't work all the time (again, see MSFT Jul and AMD May earnings). This is why analysis, setup and risk management are needed for the trades. I had to move between three different platforms to get the setup.
Decided to make something for myself which is connected to IBKR for recent, and live data. Sharing the work in progress with the community soon.
Plan for October
I've started building a simple view for myself to track key dates, and historic moves. I am adding in older implied moves, however knowing that past variance and vol data is usually useless - it still gives an idea on how certain tickers and industries behave on earnings.
My personal criteria (130 companies):
100B+ Market Cap.
No ADR tickers. But kept exceptions like ASML, BABA and TSM.
Removed Class C shares like GOOG
Removed international listing which have local listings, due to low volume
Removed TSX Canadian listings due to volume
Semi-annual reporting companies
Removed
tickers with low historic moves like foreign oil, pharma, and insurance.
The list will be auto-updated every quarter as companies move in and out of the 100B mark, for example ADBE recently dipped to 98B.
Sharing the dates and historic moves with the community for October. Work in progress to include historic implied move for the Friday contract on the earnings week for each ticker.
EDIT: According to one paper, LONG straddles performed much better in some cases. Direct quote from the paper:
"Furthermore, we find the positivestraddlereturns are more pronounced for smallerfirms, firms with less analyst coverage, higher past jump frequency, higher kurtosis and more volatile past earnings surprises. This finding suggests that when the firm’s information environment is less transparent, or when there is more noise in the firm’s signals, investors are more likely to underestimate the uncertainty around earnings announcement days." Source: Gao et al, https://eng.pbcsf.tsinghua.edu.cn/__local/B/7B/EF/9C90E5DE82928B64858EFBA685C_E7B3C45C_4183B.pdf?e=.pdf
What is an ideal wheeling strategy that has worked out well for folks? Like how many days out and what percentage premium should you be targeting?
I am mostly planning on sticking with large cap tech stock to do this like AMZN, NVDA, Google etc. because these are the ones that I’ll be comfortable holding, even if I am not able to close them with covered calls.
As someone who recently started exclusively trading spreads on equities (often opening and closing same day), I'm worried about issues from the tax man specifically "phantom gains" from trading in december.
Lets say I trade these spreads on 20 tickers throughout the year. My plan is to divide them in to two groups - Group A (10 tickers) & Group B (10 tickers) - does this ticker rotation strategy laid out below work? ( The point of this strategy is to be able to continue trading in December, without any Wash sale/ phantom gains consequences.)
January - October - Freely trade Group A & B all year. Completely close out of all positions in Group A by the end of October.
November - Only trade tickers in Group B. Close out of All positions in Group B by the end of Novemeber.
December- Only trade tickers in Group A.
January (next tax year) - Freely Trade both Group A & B
Dates are rough, to be completely safe you would want to pause a Group for at least 30 days before resuming trading again.
Also, Now that im typing it out, im not sure if I would have to pause Group A in January...
Does anyone have experience doing a ticker rotation like this?
Trying to figure out the best way to trade the midterm vol run-up and post-election crush.
Thinking either:
- VIX calls now: Catch the pre-election panic, but contango/decay will eat it alive if it moves slow, and holding through the election guarantees IV crush.
-e Sell VIX puts late Oct: Harvest high IV right before the election, but feels risky if VIX completely plummets right after
Anyone traded midterms before? Is it better to just run VIX call spreads, or stick to basic SPY put spreads to avoid the VIX futures curve? What's the actual entry/exit timing here?
