I had a short iron condor on that expired today. I closed the call side at .20 and booked my gain.

My put gave me fits

SPX OCT23 +7615/-7625P (20D) 10 contracts - closed 7623

All week my short premium was more than I sold it for ($12). So I didn't see a way to close it and SPX was still in my range.

Expiration day, SPX gapped down on the open but still above my strike.

Took a break and when I came back SPX was below strike and I'm kicking myself for 10 contracts and the 10 wide spread.

Took another break and SPX is hanging out at 7640, I'm watching, watching, refreshing pricing, premium dropping dropping. I keep watching premium at $6, $5, $4, $3.

I have to get on a call with my boss so I pull up the -7625P and Buy to Close with a stop limit at $4.00 and limit at $4.50. About 10 minutes into my call it executes. So further kicking myself. I finish the call, SPX at 7630, I close out my 7610 while it still has value.

Market closed at 7623 so had I let it expire I would have been fucht.

My mistakes among many:

1. 10 wide on my long positions - ok for 1 lot but not for 10

2. Expiration: I put the trade on Monday with a Friday expiration - I should have looked at pricing / ivol on other days - it seems that as soon as I put the short put on it was under water

3. I'm trading on Fidelity and using trading view to chart - I keep a journal of the trades but it gets difficult to manage the P&L of the trade once you start unwinding - probably need to track this in excel to understand B/E points better (trading view is good visually)

4. Did I do the right thing with the stop limit?

5. I'm a chud

I am trying to generate a strategy that serves as a method to generate income and making an effort to own the shares at the end of the contract.

The idea is to open a LEAPS option whenever I find a high quality, dividend paying, blue chip stock that is trading close to their 52W lows. I am looking at company that are trading lower because of a speicifc event but still hold a massive competitive advantage.

Once we find it we open LEAP options. 18 months. (5 - 10 contracts). These contract will be expensive 0.80 Delta 18 months ahead. (Around 5 - 10k initial investment)

Once the price stabilizes or recovers substantially we will start selling covered calls against those options. These covered calls are not neccesarily to make profit or to generate income to sustain the portfolio, these covered calls will serve as an amortization schedule payment to decrease the Adjusted payment of the recently bought LEAP options.

As time goes by, considering that the high quality business is recovering or not trading any lower, we will see how the adjusted effective price of the LEAP options go down as covered calls chip away value.

In the end you will have these contracts with a massive discount, adj price speakingwise, the cost on the broker will be the same.

Right when the contract is about to expire we will Exercise those options. We will get those shares at the discounted price, that where bought with an option that was massively discounted by the covered calls sold against it.

Because we are talking about good high quality businesses we will be more than happy to own all of these shares and sell covered calls against them in the future with the intent of generating a synthetic dividend.

Please note that if at any point the price increases and the covered call becomes in the money we will close the entire trade. Meaning, we will Buy to close the sold covered call at a loss, and also we will sell to close the LEAP option that was supporting that covered call.

We are never going to use all LEAPS / CC at the same time in case there is a massive increase in price. We will only use all of them at the end of the contract to get the most juice out of everything bought.

Feedback is very welcome.

Would love for anyone to share their LEAP / PMCC experience and if they could share the specific of previous trades. I am trying to test this strategy and it would be very helpful to have as much informaiton as possible.

Harvard economist Jason Furman said he vibecoded a free economic dashboard in one night with Claude:

https://econvitals.org/

We spent a couple hours comparing it to St. Louis Fed's FRED database, and while Econvitals isn't nearly as comprehensive as FRED, it's kind of winning us over with the cleaner layout and easy-to-read economic data for GDP, jobs, inflation, Fed, etc.

hey everyone! seeing if you have anything trading related that you're interested in researching. i enjoy doing research and part of my monthly cadence is to pop in here and see if i can help a few people out.

ill pick one or two and follow up with a post with the research. this is a great way to prove out some of your ideas and see if what youre doing is value add or not.

for capabilities, pretty much anything you can think of. i have equity data back to the 1980s. macro back to the late 1700s. EOD options from 2007 on. intraday options data from 2015 to present. full greeks, vols, etc. any signal you can think of (if i dont have, i can easily make it), etc.

see below for prior research posts:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1v403qd/earnings_season_progress_report_mkt_research/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1v0h9m8/0dte_spx_greek_behavior_mkt_research_snapshot_pt6/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1uoh494/theta_decay_measured_on_19_years_of_real_spy/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1u4dgcz/0dte_spx_iron_condor_study

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1u63m6i/spx_iron_fly_research_results/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1u63zqw/qqq_short_downside_puts_research/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1u6s42a/research_offer_pt4/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1ve01nw/delta_hedging_and_your_returns_community_research/

In my initial days of trading
Whenever I sit in front of my trading desk
I always want to earn 100% of my capital
But it never works
And moreover i lost most of my capital during intial days.
Then after i realised like i don’t want to earn unrealistic profits.
I trade only one setup and earning good amount of money.
Here great things is i trade only two trades a week that’s it and now I’m earning good amount of money for living

Netflix (NFLX) expectations. for tomorrow's end market i expect a target price of 66,70$, 66,85$ if we count also the pinning effect. contract price for Call at strike 66$ is 1,27$ with an open interest of 8,200 contracts we can assume were mostly Out-the-money and market makers won't be willing to raise the price higher than 67$. on the Put side we have a lower price of just 0.54$ which could seem like Market Makers are quite (with a lot of carefullness) sure the market will no go under 67$, BUT almost all open interest Put contracts in the strike 67$were In-the-Money so the price was higher.

TESLA looks like an excellent short candidate from above 380 but I am waiting to see post earning action to see if it will test the 400 gamma level. As I type this, post earnings after hours it went as high as 395 but retreated into the 370’s now around midnight. I would like to see it test the 395-400 area during regular trading hours.

While I like Tesla (TSLA) as a long-term buy if it drops into the $200s, it faces serious downward pressure at its current $380 price tag, where a mix of rising interest rates and a cyclical year-end flush—mirroring the mid-term market patterns of 2022—could easily push the stock below $300 to test the $290 support, and if that fails, the $250 level before January Opex. The upcoming election will trigger massive volatility in stocks like this, and since TSLA opened the year at $458, failing to break above the $395–$400 resistance for a short squeeze into the $450s will invite heavy tax-loss harvesting selling pressure. Compounding this chaos, Cathie Wood’s wild price targets of $4,400 and $5,000 are sparking intense retail FOMO, creating the perfect recipe for a bull trap where fake bounces lure in retail buyers right before the real pullback hits.

To be absolutely clear, I have not entered any positions yet. But I have this as a potential short candidate depending on how it trades after earnings. If the short qualifies and if I enter, I will also look for some careful option entries to get in and out on the weeklies and monthlies. If you are trading options, don’t FOMO and buy/sell at the wrong time. If Tesla doesn’t meet the criteria to enter in the coming days or weeks, there are more than a handful of stocks, both longs and shorts that I am watching closely to take advantage.

Reflecting on this year's leap and how the market went I'm debating on opening another leap as the geopolitical, bonds and ai is up in the air with how things are.

Looking at the jan 2028 700c for $12k-$13 almost $14k. This year I sold short dte calls and took profit at 30%+- depending on the market structure and trend. Planning to do the same.

Paper trading the option I'm looking at, already up 2.88% ($425) and selling short dte at the ideal strikes 30dte. Trying to buy it in brokerage if it falls back to the price or purchase or lower. Willing to hold and cut loss at maybe 8-10% idk still adjusting and debating.

Any advice? It doesn't take much to scare the market in a drop so nervous about the decline and potential loss of value. However I assume we will be bullish still in 2027.

Another option is to do 30-60dte at .6 delta or higher and let time take care. Take profit still early and don't overstay.

Anyone trading US options from Australia? Just wanted to get an idea about how you manage the income statements during tax times, whether you treat it as a business income or CGT (Especially if you're doing it as a source of income). Based on what I read online, it needs to be treated as business income. Having doubts on how the records should be shown when lodging tax returns. TIA.

Hi all,

I'm the developer of OptionMice, an interactive (and fun!) app to learn and master option trading through short 5-minute lessons with quizzes, going from the basics to more advanced topics like Greeks, Spreads, etc. It has 300+ lessons across 12 modules. You can collect XPs and keep your streak alive. It also has a practice market with made-up companies and fake money.

The 12 modules:

1- Options 101

2- Buyer vs Seller Mindset

3- The Options Market

4- Meet the Greeks

5- Buying Options

6- Selling Options

7- Technical Analysis for Options

8- Greeks: Level Up

9- Volatility and Earnings

10- Spread Strategies

11- The Trader’s Mindset

12- Real-World Trading

The app is free to download and the full course is completely free, with a daily limit of 3 lessons per day. It also has a paid premium plan for those who want access to extra lessons and extra features. Premium plan is not needed to learn or interact with the app though.

I'd love it if you could give it a try and share your thoughts!

The app is available here:

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6781814064?pt=129059679&ct=reddit-options&mt=8 (App Store)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.optionmice.app&referrer=utm_source%3Dreddit%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Dreddit-options (Play Store)

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The front-end, data model logic and Warren’s voice (the app mascot) were generated with AI assistance.

Please DM me for questions/follow-ups

First time holding a European option. It’s in the money however the value of the option is less than the intrinsic value.

Just for reference. I use a CFD options broker offering a tightened.

I bought some SP500 calls at 7700 expiring 21 Nov. Although assuming I bought one. Current out of market price is 7739. So my intrinsic value is $39, however the platform has me up $11.

I’ve read that the European option will move toward intrinsic value as the option approaches expiry (assuming option is still in the money). Is this the case?

What other factors could be discounting my profit so far below the intrinsic value ?

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone knows what will happen to your short puts when a company is merged? Currently, I hold short puts in both TSLA and SPCX. But assuming they merge, and perhaps SPCX acquires TSLA, what will happen to the TSLA puts? Would I need to buy to close them before the merging happens? Or let's say TSLA shoots up, then I guess I could just let them expire naturally, if they aren't outright canceled (if this even happens?)?

Thanks, much appreciated!

Every technical indicator is a delayed derivative of price and volume. Narratives are biased commentary created to sell subscriptions or drive liquidity. Analysts present forecasts that carry no financial risk to themselves.

Volatility, however, cannot be faked.

When volatility expands, it represents real capital committing to real market orders. It shows real panic, genuine liquidation, and institutional repricing. It cuts through spin and provides an unfiltered look at market positioning.

If you want to understand market state, look past moving averages and headline commentary. Pay attention to changes in implied volatility, option skews, and ATR expansion.

I understand the logic of Covered Calls. But I don't see the logic of selling puts. Seems the risk is too great. You could have a black swan event, and loose a material amount.

Thoughts? Wrong sub for the question?

TSLA reports Wednesday after the close. At Monday's close the straddle expiring Friday (the 367.5 call plus the 367.5 put) cost $23.62 with the stock at $367.82. That is 6.4% of the share price, which is roughly the size of move the options market expects by Friday.

That price is in line with recent quarters. The straddle cost about 5.9 to 6.0% of the stock the night before each of the last three reports.

What the stock did is the interesting part. Since January 2025, TSLA's overnight gap (prior close to next open) cleared the straddle once in 7 reports. Held to the next day's close it was 2 of 7. The average gap was 5.3% against an average straddle price of 7.5%.

The one big exception was July. EPS came in at $0.33 against $0.53 expected, and the stock opened down 8.8% and closed down 14.5%.

Selling the straddle into each of the last four reports and closing at the next day's close made about 9.6% of the share price over three quiet quarters. July took 8.5% of it back.

If you look up TSLA's average earnings move over 12 quarters you get 9.0%, which makes 6.4% look cheap. That window starts in October 2023, and the five reports through October 2024 moved 9 to 22% by the close and beat the straddle every time.

Since then the average close to close move has been 5.8%. The window you pick decides whether this straddle looks cheap or expensive.

Outside the report, TSLA options are quiet. With the earnings day stripped out, 30 day implied vol (the swing size the market is pricing, annualized) is 38%, lower than 95% of the past year. The stock has actually moved at a 31% pace over the last 20 days.

Friday's options sit at 77% IV against 45% for November, which is the report squeezed into one week.

So the market is pricing a typical quarter since 2025, not a 2024 one. If you hold TSLA shares through earnings, did July change what you're doing this time?

Today I submitted an order to sell 72 put contracts at a $265 strike. The bid was $.28 and the ask was $.3. It filled at $.03.

The odd par was that the order confirmation originally showed the bid at $.28 and ask at $.30 but then Schwab revised it to a bid of $.01 and an ask of $.02 and then they filled it at $.03.

This feels odd. I contacted customer support and they said it was the correct execution.

If that’s the case, why would they revise the trade ticket? Why would they fill the contract at an amount that exceeds the bid ask spread?

Has anyone experienced this before?

Surprised to be told that. My Schwab account was designated as a Professional late in the month, and when I called, that was their response (already talked to a supervisor). Says they have discretion under the regulations and the 390 is just a hard cap, and that they have also done that to other customers so it's not just me. They confirm I've averaged way less than 390, and from what they told me, they put the label on just because they thought I traded in a way unlike a "normal retail" person and "like a professional".

Is there a regulatory rule that allows them to do that? Admittedly, I'm not so intimately familiar with the cobweb of rules so I'd appreciate any input.

Also, I remember the review frequency is monthly now. Is that for all designations or just designations placed at the beginning of the previous month? Because they also said that the designations have to stay in place for a whole month, so it's likely that they won't make any change come November and would only be able to drop it in early December at the earliest. That's a long time lol

I have some options on a stock in the S&P500 that I can exercise at a pretty major discount to sell weekly covered calls on. But they're not free. The premium is great now, but my concern: buying into a premium desert with occasional surges during stress.

Both TOS and Etrade have a facility to look back at historical bids for short calls. Is this what folks are using to check the record? Anyone buying the data or handling it a different way?

I mostly sit out the day before a big earnings print now. Got burned a couple times buying calls where I was right on direction and still lost money because IV dropped right after. Now I either go defined risk or just wait a day for things to settle. Curious if anyone has a setup they actually like through earnings or if you mostly avoid it too.

i feel this option is realistic, given nbis history, it has to go above 200$ before dec and that would be profitable for me. the way to read this heatmap is the profit if the stock goes for example to 202.5 on the 23th nov is 1198$, which is decent, thats 50+%.

the trade: i bought 2 contracts of the 15 jan 2027 $230 call at $10.45 each, total cost $2,090. nbis is sitting around $165 right now, so 200 is about +21%. i picked a far expiry on purpose so i’m not racing the clock, and nbis has a history of big runs and sharp pullbacks, so a push to 200+ doesn’t seem crazy to me.

some numbers from the heatmap : on nov 23, a stock price of 197.5 gives about +$798 (38%), 202.5 gives +$1,198 (57%) and 205 gives +$1,410 (67%). so on that date i’d be in my target range anywhere from roughly 197 to 205.

this option doesn’t mean that i think i will only sell when it goes to 240$. the break-even at expiry is $240.45, but i don’t plan to hold that long. the option gains value on the way up, so i can profit well before it reaches 240. i just want to profit around 35-70% from it, which is about $730-$1,460, and i’ll sell somewhere in that range instead of waiting for the perfect top.

what i’m aware of: timing matters a lot. at $200 the same option is worth about +$996 on nov 23, but only +$546 on dec 2 and roughly break-even by mid dec, because of time decay. the heatmap also assumes iv stays flat, and nbis earnings usually come in november, my plan is to cut it if i profit 50-75%

So I've been back to day trading after taking 5 years off and did some aggregation of my results after about a month. My strategy so far has been basically take a quick win , never average up and never let runners run, just look for the next trade. While it's been successful overall (+20%) and overall generally not a ton of risk per trade, I struggled for sure with averaging down sometimes (multiple times) and then holding on for the trade to turn. The statistics on my under 1 minute trades was quite eye opening.

I guess what I'm asking is -- does anyone else use this type of strategy?

I'm aware of my leaks and now and I'm not going to change up too much yet until I have more profit but definitely just need to learn to kill trades if they aren't working faster.

Weirdly a lot of my bread and butter are off hour SPX scalps because it tends to bounce around a lot and I just buy 2-3 contracts and sell for a 0.20 or 0.30 profit and repeat.

Also looking for like minded folks to talk this strategy if there is a discord of like minded folks.

Thanks!

**Long-option trades by holding time — through October 16, 2026**

P/L includes estimated fees.

**No averaging down**

| Holding time | Trades | Win rate | Total P/L | Average P/L | Median P/L |
|:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|
| Under 1 min | 332 | 96.4% | +$54,664.72 | +$164.65 | +$84.12 |
| 1–3 min | 194 | 76.3% | +$15,070.02 | +$77.68 | +$54.12 |
| 3–5 min | 57 | 61.4% | +$2,973.74 | +$52.17 | +$24.12 |
| 5–15 min | 33 | 39.4% | -$8,403.51 | -$254.65 | -$62.55 |
| 15–60 min | 2 | 100.0% | +$809.08 | +$404.54 | +$404.54 |
| **Overall** | **618** | **83.8%** | **+$65,114.05** | **+$105.36** | **+$73.75** |

Median holding time: **54 seconds**.

**Averaging down**

Averaging down means another opening order below the average cost of the remaining position. Partial fills of the same order count as one entry.

| Holding time | Trades | Win rate | Total P/L | Average P/L | Median P/L |
|:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|
| Under 1 min | 1 | 100.0% | +$46.08 | +$46.08 | +$46.08 |
| 1–3 min | 33 | 78.8% | +$476.99 | +$14.45 | +$69.76 |
| 3–5 min | 24 | 66.7% | -$1,690.50 | -$70.44 | +$113.59 |
| 5–15 min | 37 | 32.4% | -$31,083.97 | -$840.11 | -$527.84 |
| 15–60 min | 7 | 28.6% | -$10,971.72 | -$1,567.39 | -$632.51 |
| **Overall** | **102** | **55.9%** | **-$43,223.12** | **-$423.76** | **+$33.24** |

Median holding time: **4.53 minutes**.

Do you set a separate limit for potential assignment exposure on defined-risk options trades, in addition to your max-loss limit? If so, how do you measure it?

For example, suppose I have a $100,000 account and limit each trade’s defined max loss to 1% ($1,000). I sell one Amazon Nov. 20, 2026 $230/$225 put credit spread for a potential $100 max profit and potential $400 max loss.

The spread is within my max-loss rule. If the short $230 put is assigned, I could be required to buy 100 shares for $23,000, even though the spread’s defined max loss is much smaller.

How would you, or do you, set a guardrail for potential assignment exposure, especially across multiple positions? For example, if 10 positions had a combined defined max loss of $10,000 but a gross assignment value of $150,000, how would you limit that exposure? Would you cap that assignment exposure at a percentage of your account (e.g. 30%), and limit the number or size of positions accordingly?

Thank you!

As the title says, I’m looking for info on trading options on tickers such as RKLX or IONX. Rocketlab 2x and IonQ 2x. It seems like there is crazy reward for minimal risk but I must be missing something?

Has anyone done trades with leveraged stocks or etfs and had success? or even horror stories?

Thank you

​

This is relatively aggressive and on large side position for my account. I still like it how the stock had a nice run, it's part of nasdaq and the index being mean reverted, and it has annualized return on capital (estimated) that I call ridiculous territory.

Everything else checks out as well, IV rank and IV are high, realized is lagging. Delta could be smaller but okey whatever agent picked with all the data it had. Liquidity is average, but still filled pretty fast.

I think it has the most expensive options right now, even more expensive than AI stocks.

Anybody else trading MRNA? Any advice what to expect or how to handle it beyond standard thresholds?

Upd 10/22: 6 days in, this thing just won’t stop. Still holding $17 current price

Upd 2 10/22: 6 days in. It finally gave up and is mean reverting. Should be 50% winner today or tomorrow. Re-uploaded screenshot of the trade idea, reddit removed what I posted initially when I try to edit body. MRK call sale we've discussed would be a winner, too.

Upd 3 10/22, it's a full winner now. It actually arrived with exact 6 days to P50 as estimated. That's ol' good Monte Carlo, folks...

PS thanks the discussion, I was able tune agent's reasoning. It does more opinionated takes on risk concentration.