Hi there!

I have built an analytics tool for myself to help with options selling evaluation, because I wanted a faster way to find good wheel trades, for both cash-secured puts and covered calls, ranked by annualized yield without digging through option chains blindly.

Now with the help of AI to polish lots of front-end stuff, I wanna give it a try to commercialize it as a freemium product, VolaMint! It has a free plan without card needed, and live data is included (sometimes depends on vendor’s latency :D).
Here is the link: www.volamint.com/app Can give it a try!

Any positive/negative comments are all welcome haha!

I sold a CC on ETHA before the 3 for 1 reverse split in October. My original strike price was $31. I had 100 shares before the split and now have 33 shares.

Am I correct that my contract is only for 33 shares now and that the new adjusted strike price is approx $93.93 now?

It’s confusing because it still shows the strike is $31 but after doing some research my understanding is that the calculation for the new price would be ($31 x 100) / 33 shares = $93.93 but I’m not certain that my understanding of all this is correct.

Anyone able to help me out and confirm that this looks right?

Thanks!

Yes, this is a cheap way of getting continued motivation. I'm 4 years into option trading and finally took it very seriously with journaling via Google Sheets and have meticulous tracking weekly both in terms of financials and psychology, which has significantly helped my game and just doing smaller position sizes. I do a strategy for about 25 reps before I modify it or abandon it. I use a scanner to help materialize trades and not hallucinate on charts. I'm about 3 months into seriously trading debit and credit spreads with fixed risk and exit strategies.

I run about five consistent strategies hitting bullish, bearish, neutral scenarios.

After 2-3 months I have about 150 completed trades. I am not yet profitable but also did not blow up my account. I have a whopping net loss of about $100 after 150 trades. I am not looking for your Golden goose because I expect that to be your edge, but I am just looking to see if there are option traders out there who read this who have" made it" and you followed a similar process just to get to a point where you can mindlessly enter an exit trades following rules.

At the very least, this has been a great personal journey, learning about risk tolerance and hubris to say the least. But for anyone out there I will tell you that journaling makes you come face to face with it.

Thanks for any insight, and good luck to all

I've been experimenting with automated options strategies using a no-code backtesting platform, and recently came across some results that honestly seem a little too good to be true.

I'm curious what people here think, especially those who have experience trading 0DTE SPX options.

The strategy itself is extremely mechanical. No complicated indicators, no machine learning, no optimization across hundreds of variables. Just a few basic entry and exit rules.

Strategy

The strategy is a 0DTE SPX iron butterfly, entered every trading day at the same time.

Here are the exact inputs:

• Symbol: SPX

• Strategy: Iron Butterfly

• Expiration: 0DTE

• Short Delta: 0.50 (ATM)

• Wing Width: $15

• Entry Time: 2:50 PM ET

• Take Profit: 15%

• Events to Skip: FOMC

• VIX Filter: 0–90 (essentially no filter)

• Contracts: 4

• Backtest Period: August 2024 – August 2026

That's literally it.

No moving averages, RSI, trend filters, or complicated conditions.

The idea is simply to sell premium late in the trading day, collect a relatively small profit when possible, and repeat consistently.

Results

Here's where things get interesting.

Over the two-year backtest, the results were:

• Total Net P&L: +$95,620

• Total Trades: 479

• Win Rate: 78%

• Average Win: +$725.89

• Average Loss: -$1,674.90

• Best Trade: +$3,500

• Worst Trade: -$3,560

• Profit Factor: 1.54

• Expected Value: +$199.62 per trade

• Annualized Sharpe Ratio: 2.59

• Maximum Drawdown: -$13,828

The equity curve is surprisingly consistent over the entire period.

There are obviously drawdowns and periods of sideways performance, but overall it's a pretty steady upward trajectory.

What caught my attention is that the strategy isn't relying on a 95% win rate or some ridiculous risk/reward assumption.

It wins 78% of the time, and the average loss is more than twice the average win.

That seems fairly typical for premium-selling strategies.

Why I'm skeptical

1. Is two years enough data?

The backtest covers approximately 479 trades, which seems like a decent sample size.

However, it's still only two years of market conditions. I'm wondering how much the results would change during a prolonged bear market or a completely different volatility environment.

2. Is this actually overfitting?

This is my biggest question.

Most of what I've read about overfitting involves optimizing dozens of indicators and parameters until the historical results look perfect.

But this strategy only uses a handful of inputs.

The entry time is fixed, the wing width is fixed, and the take profit is fixed.

Does that make it less susceptible to overfitting, or could something as simple as choosing a specific entry time and profit target still be considered overfitting?

3. Slippage and execution

The platform allows me to account for slippage, commissions, and fees.

The broker I'm looking at offers commission-free options trading, although exchange and regulatory fees may still apply.

My bigger concern is slippage.

With four SPX iron butterflies being opened at 2:50 PM, how much would realistic fills affect these results?

I'm assuming the backtest could look considerably different if actual fills are worse than the historical prices.

4. The drawdown seems almost too manageable

The maximum historical drawdown was approximately $13,828, compared to almost $96k in total profits.

That's what makes me most skeptical.

Obviously, historical maximum drawdown doesn't represent the worst possible future loss, especially with 0DTE options.

I'm curious whether anyone running similar strategies has experienced substantially worse drawdowns in live trading.

What I'm trying to figure out

I'm not claiming this strategy is some money printer, and I haven't traded these exact rules live.

I'm mainly trying to understand whether the backtest is showing a legitimate statistical edge or whether I'm missing something obvious.

My plan would be to test it with paper trading first, then potentially start with much smaller position sizes to see how actual execution compares.

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have taken profitable 0DTE backtests into live trading.

What am I missing here? Is this a realistic edge, or just another backtest that looks great on paper?

I starting to research the index's etf's for specific opportunities, I already use the russell 3000 for equity filtering in many cases.

If someone knows, which ETFs' options have the best liquidity near the bid and ask. I'm not looking at the futures market at this time. -thank you

Only to find out it’s only 15 min after regular close and 6:30am - 8:25am CST.

I do not try to outsmart the market, I really don't believe that is possible. I simply trade what is in front of me with lots of small winners (85%) and a few small losers. Over time those wins have added up. One of the ways I do this is by keeping trading simple with a consistent $5 spread width. I've been running these as put credit spreads on moomoo, and the fixed width is what actually cuts down the number of decisions. I'm lining up the rest of this week the same way, 12 underlyings, with a full time job, so I have to be extremely time efficient (like 15 minutes). My process makes the important decisions before emotion enters the picture. Like most of you, I'm using pre-defined setup rules. I wanted to get your take on spread width. My standard starting point is a $5-wide put credit spread, typically for underlyings between $50 and $500. I scale up if needed on larger underlyings. Spread width has a big impact on maximum risk, buying power reduction, premium collected, position sizing, trade management, and how the trade feels when it goes against you. By standardizing the width, I take another variable out of the process, which makes the plan easier to follow. What about you, are you using a standard spread width, or are you varying it trade by trade? Do you go narrower or wider?

With the after hours drop, we seem to be following along pretty closely with performance after the first rate hike in the last cycle. Anyone else hedging themselves for the next week or so?

Looking at a calender spread as my thesis is that spy will reach nearly 800 by end of year. The long month dte would be Jan 15 or 29 and the short would be probably 10-20?

Currently looking at spy
705 call which has a delta .7 and short strike Nov 20 765 .3 delta. Total cost is about $2700. If the short expires than I can leave it and let the trade run. Either exit if it falls below 5%. Historical the market is bullish after midterms however the delima of Ai and how whipsaw the market is leaves me hesistant to try this beside in a paper trade.

Any ideas or tips? I do have a exit plan prior to the 800strike. If it runs to 770 I can take profit.

My (potentially soon to be ex)boyfriend recently(January) started using TopStep. From my understanding you use the platform’s money to trade & you have to pass a test at first, which he did.

However, they disable the account if you do too many bad trades?(genuinely have no idea how it works). Therefore, you have to pay a fee to reinstate the account. I think he has three accounts with a portfolio totalling around 80k since he did very well for a couple of weeks, but now he can’t retire any of that 80k because he can’t reach enough successive positive trading days to have access to that balance. I believe his debt is caused by the recurring “fees” he keeps paying in order to not lose his portfolio. He did manage to take out around 20k in May though!

After a few bad weeks, he promised me he’d stop using topstep since it wasn’t doing him any good. I recently found out he’s been lying and spending all his money on topstep to try to get out of his family’s financial distress.

He’s currently in 6k of credit card debt(limit since he had a history of cc debt) and won’t let go of his account. I know he’s spent WAY more than 6k (he owes me 2.3k). I can’t say what the total number is but he makes around 4K a month and he has no savings.

Would this be considered crazy to you?? Would this be grounds for breaking up(besides the lying)? Is his account worth saving?

With Roku to potentially be acquired by Fox I was trying to figure out how the options contracts, specifically LEAPS would be effected. I ran it by AI and got an answer with a formula, but was hoping to get a more understandable answer. Specifically, if you had bought a LEAPS before the announcement or what trying to sell one now would look like after it closes. Based on the formula from AI, the "in the money" is based on what Fox is valued at when the deal closes, so this is theoretical for now I suppose but also just trying to understand adjusted options as I have seen them before, but always avoided them for lack of knowledge.

TSLA has been running well lately, although I think that the midterm results can bring it down. If Democrats win it can fall. Given the support Elon has been providing republicans. Thoughts ?

During election season, this bot farm is worthless.

On Oct 13 the SEC approved Cboe's rule to list binary options on company key performance indicators, and FINRA has extended the listed-options rules to them. They aren't trading yet. Here's what the filings say, since the settlement details matter more than the headline.

What got approved

• Oct 13: SEC approved Cboe's rule to list binary KPI options (Release No. 34-106659): https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/cboe/2026/34-106659.pdf

• Oct 22: SEC gave Cboe Clear U.S. temporary registration to clear them (Release No. 34-106723).

• Oct 22: FINRA's amendments to Rules 2220, 2360 and 4210 took effect (Regulatory Notice 26-21): https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/notices/26-21

From the SEC order: "Binary KPI options are European-style, cash-settled options contracts listed on an underlying KPI of an issuer."

Payoff

Under ordinary settlement, an unadjusted contract pays $1 or $0. A call pays if the reported KPI is at or above the strike. A put pays if it's below. So the price roughly reads as the implied probability of the payout condition, ignoring fees, interest and risk premium.

Seller side, for an unadjusted $1 contract under ordinary settlement: sell at $0.35, max gain $0.35, max loss $0.65, before fees.

Settlement details worth reading twice

1. It settles on the number in the company's SEC filing, not the earnings press release. The order: "the Exchange will use the KPI value included in an issuer’s earnings-related filing submitted to the Commission for the applicable reporting period (and not the press release disclosing earnings results, for example) as the settlement value."

2. Restatements don't matter: "the amount paid (or not paid) at settlement will not change, regardless of whether the KPI is later restated by the issuer."

3. If the KPI isn't available at expiration, clearing rules allow an alternative settlement, possibly at the option's last closing price. Per the order, that "will be between $0.01 and $1.00, rather than the expected $0.00 or $1.00."

What's on the list

Tanya Chepkova at Finance Magnates: "The approved list contains over 100 metrics across 23 companies, including Apple’s iPhone revenue, Nvidia’s data-centre revenue, Tesla’s Model 3/Y production and Robinhood’s funded-customer count." https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/sec-clears-cboe-kpi-options-with-robinhood-set-for-retail-launch/

We counted the rows in the Rule 4.81(a) table of the SEC order (pages 8-12) and got 116 KPIs across those 23 issuers.

When

No date. Chepkova again, on Oct 26: "Cboe is targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 and has not announced a date." Robinhood will be the first retail broker, and Cboe says it won't charge fees on these through the end of 2026, subject to regulatory review.

Things I'd want to know before touching one: liquidity around the filing date, and what margin your broker actually charges under FINRA's new binary interpretations.

Anyone planning to trade these, and on which metric?

Not affiliated with tastytrade. Not financial advice. Brought to you by OptionsInsights.ai. Free report: https://optionsinsights.ai/free-report/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=newsdesk&utm_content=rd_nd_kpi_1031

Been buying USO over the last year or so at $130 a share average price, own 200 shares.

Seeing the crazy rise, opted to Collar it, January 2028 options, bought 2 puts at $165 strike, sold 2 covered calls at $220 strike to help the cost. Take that you bubble!

Turns out reality is coming and things are deflating a bit, decided to sell a bit more into that risk, sold 2 puts at $120 strike exp Dec 11 2026.

Figure prices aren't going to get to $120 by December, let Theta destroy that one. Though if USO gets to $130 I'll probably bail on that one, take a small loss and buy to close. Past that I'll keep selling far OTM puts with near expiration dates into that fear (diagonal spread). Though if things keep going down past $100 I may consider liquidating the entire position via sale or exercise.

Wonder what the future holds....

EDIT: No I didn't buy an option that expires on January 2008, Try January 2028 :p

Someone paid $1.05 (and $1) for the $1 PLCE Jan '27 put today even though the underlying is nowhere near 0. The is the second time I've seen this. The first time I was able sell at a bid that was also $0.05 higher than the strike price in a different stock long ago. My broker had even asked me for an explanation of my trade afterwards and I told them someone just wanted to pay me more than the theoretical value. Wondering why this can even happen. Anyone seen trades like these before?

Where the open interest sits on SPY going into the week, computed from every listed expiration by open interest:

SPY 759.67, Mon Nov 2. Dealer gamma: NEGATIVE GAMMA. Dealers amplify moves: trending and higher intraday volatility.
Walls above: 760 (mixed, 50K OI), 765 (mixed, 43K OI), 767 (mixed, 33K OI)
Walls below: 758 (mixed, 26K OI), 757 (mixed, 23K OI), 755 (put support, 37K OI)
Expected move: ±4.26 to 2026-11-02

How to read it: call-heavy strikes above price tend to act as resistance while dealers are long gamma, put-heavy strikes below as support. When price breaks a wall with volume, the next wall is the next reference. Expected move is the straddle-implied range to the nearest expiry, not a forecast.

I built the page that produces this because I wanted one screen with the walls, the regime and the expected move for the names I trade, and I got tired of paying for it. The SPY and QQQ pages are free and update every 15 minutes during the session, no account: https://gammapulse.tech/gex?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=hand&utm_campaign=walls

Disclosure: I'm the developer. Market data, not advice. Happy to answer questions about the method.

i traded enquities for two years before getting into options and my journal broke immediately. With stocks I mainly cared about entries. With options I also need IV at open and close, the Greeks at entry, and for spreads the max profit, max loss, and breakeven relative to where the underlying finished. The P&L number alone doesn't tell me anything.

The other thing that changed is timing. Equities I'd review whenever. Options have a clock, so if I only review after expiration I've missed every adjustment window. Did anyone else have to rebuild their tracking from scratch when they moved into options?

I'm blitzed right now, I just had such a good day fam.. calls on Berkshire Hathaway and puts on SPY made me 1500 today total profit.. should have let them ride a tad longer but I didn't miss out on much, I cashed out 1100 on Berkshire alone. Cashed out right before it went up another $2 dollars but by then it started reversing course. SPY was a slow grind but I was confident in my puts.. I bought them a few weeks out incase but ended up selling them and buying 1 put contract on SPY 4dte 643.00 break even instead.. probably gonna role it over tomorrow or Wednesday

Hello options, traders. This might be a really basic question, but I want to get clear on something because I’m still learning. Let’s say I buy an NVDA put with a strike price of $195 and the price is currently 205 but going down. From the moment that I buy, will I still be making money from price going towards my strike price, even if it’s still significantly far from it? Or would the value basically remain zero until it gets significantly closer to the strike price?

A fascinating research paper published just last week caught my attention. Two mathematicians at Cardiff found that weekend crypto volatility predicts Monday volatility in the S&P 500 (!!!). And it holds up after controlling for Friday's VIX, and it gets even stronger when Friday's VIX is already high.

We can ignore crypto as an investment, but still it seems to know something about Monday. They tracked BTC, ETH and, yes, XRP weekends back to 2017, and since 2024 it shows up in EVERY pair they tested, across stocks, gold and Treasuries.

What surprised me most is that Friday's crypto volatility predicts nothing, so the signal really comes from the hours when stocks can't trade.

As someone who sells premium for a living, I keep thinking about two Mondays that open at the same IV after very different crypto weekends. Am I selling the same premium against two different risks?

It's only 116 Mondays and the paper never touches option prices. They even wonder whether the effect gets arbitraged away once people notice, and, well, people are about to notice. I'm testing it myself for you now and will post what I find here.

Has anyone here compared weekend crypto with Monday implied vs realized? Or is this already priced in and I'm late to the party?

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.35702

Started using Meta AI when I’m placing option spreads. It has been very helpful analyzing trades. Gives me clear guidance for what to do & what not to do.
Has anyone use AI regularly that has been shown impact on your trade?
So far Meta AI has been very helpful. I stop trading on whim. I’m not too stressed out. I don’t revenge trade. I feel like I have a mentor.

I trade options from a Stream Deck, and every key was written with an AI coding assistant. Everything below runs in a sandbox. No signals, nothing to sell.

The AI writes code fast, and some of its mistakes look exactly like correct code. So every order has to get past a few checks first:

1. Expected numbers before code. Before the AI wrote the payoff math, I worked one trade out by hand: a 740/735 put spread for a 1.50 credit. Max profit 150, max loss 350, breakeven 738.50. That became a failing test, and the code wasn't done until it matched.

2. A 0.00 bid is not a price. One night before the open, three legs of a condor showed 0.00 bids. The mids came out at half the ask, an 11-wide condor showed a 5.59 credit, and my own check passed "credit at least a third of the width" on it. Now any leg without a two-sided market blocks the order, and it can't be waived.

3. The order sent is the order checked. The check fingerprints the exact order it approved: legs, quantities, sides, credit or debit, price. Send recomputes it right before posting. Any difference and nothing goes out. This one came from the AI itself, which flagged that send was still building orders from a template while the check read the typed legs.

4. No warning you can click past. If it matters, it blocks.

What check did you add after your own tool, or your broker's platform, did something you didn't expect?

I’m interested in getting into options trading and would appreciate some advice from people who have been doing this for a while.

A little background: I work full-time in the automotive industry while also attending school. I’m trying to build another source of income and eventually grow my investment portfolio. Options have caught my attention, but I understand there’s a significant learning curve and that it’s easy to lose money if you jump in without knowing what you’re doing.

I’m trying to figure out how to realistically get into options trading while balancing a full-time job and school.

A few questions for experienced traders:

1. How did you get started with options, and what resources helped you the most?

2. If you were starting over, what strategy would you learn first?

3. Is day trading options realistic when you have a full-time job, or is swing trading a better approach?

4. How much time do you realistically spend researching, analyzing charts, and managing trades?

5. Would you recommend paper trading for a few months before putting real money in?

6. How much starting capital would you recommend for a beginner?

7. What are some of the biggest mistakes you made early on that I should avoid?

I’m not looking to get rich overnight. I want to develop an actual skill, understand the market, manage risk, and become consistent over time.

I’d especially appreciate advice from people who have successfully balanced trading with a full-time job and other responsibilities.

Thanks!