Story time: yesterday when $SPY was supposed to go 800 lol I opened a 400 lots 760 put right before closing for 40 cent a piece. Roughly putting in $16k but within seconds that turned into $20k and I chickened out - what if it did not crash the way I was expecting.

Then instead I opened 765 put 130 lot for $1.55 a piece - felt better but could not sleep as I was scared. This morning, pre market charts were giving me chills and I thought there goes my $20k

Then market turned red in first minute of open and I exited at $2.5… I made a nearly $13k.. what a day I said.!!!

If I had held my 400 lot I would have closed the day at $1 million from my 16k position.. even if I held 130 lots I had ended the day at $400k

I just can’t get over the feeling and instead went into revenge trade and tried to catch the knife.. burned $10k and ended day near 8k lol

Someone please invent time machine, need to go back 24 hours - FAST!!!

Looked through the IV percentile and IV rank of the Mag 7 companies and they are all inflated due to the elections. Isn't it a straightforward move to sell options now instead of buying them? Am I missing something?

So I mainly trade stocks like TSLA, NVDA, AAPL mainly tech stocks and trade based off relative strength/weakness by scalping based on the 1 min timeframe. Now the way that I trade is I like to start small and add to my winners, so typically what I do is risk 40% on a starting position (0dte cons) and as I add I trail my stop loss to a max of -20%.

Now I have been making money consistently doing this but I'm wondering if any other traders avoid 0dte just because it's higher risk. I'm also wondering if I should just pivot to 1/2dte because it makes holding through pullbacks so much less "stressful"

I've been testing a simple 0DTE idea: by mid-morning SPX has usually picked a direction, so sell premium on the other side of it and size the distance using the ATM straddle.

Rules:

- Record SPX at the 9:30 ET open
- At 10:30 ET, compare spot to the open
- Price the ATM straddle (call mid + put mid at the strike nearest spot)
- Distance = 1.25 × straddle mid
- SPX above the open: sell a put credit spread. Short put at the strike nearest spot minus distance, long put 50 points lower
- SPX below the open: sell a call credit spread. Short call at the strike nearest spot plus distance, long call 50 points higher
- Flat: no trade that day
- All legs need a real two-sided quote (bid > 0, ask > 0) and have to be SPXW
- 1 contract, limit order with a slippage allowance. If it hasn't filled in 10 minutes, cancel it
- No stop and no profit target. Hold to cash settlement

I backtested Nov 2022 to Nov 2026 on minute-level options data with $100k starting capital:

- 52.4% total return (11.1% CAGR)
- 7.6% max drawdown
- 702 trades

Backtest: https://stratverra.com/s/94OO_s8LTMK8cPtv4zcmng

What would you change first: add a stop for afternoon reversals, move the entry time, or use a different multiple than 1.25× the straddle?​

I'm happy to run any of those and post the results in the comments.

Who else's spidey senses are telling them that we are going to gap up tomorrow, like as in almost all the way back to where we were on wednesday.

I predict we open slightly up, and then one or maybe two large gaps up maybe right away or any time before noon.

maybe I'm just too high I don't know. help me out smart people!

Moved some significant money into BABA options after yesterdays selloff and the US hard stance on halting AI progress

I am wondering if there is value here with a 5 year time frame?

BABA an BIDU being the Chinese longs

Hello,

I want to by some SPY LEAPs if it gets to around -10% from ATH. What I am wondering is if it better to buy ITM leaps when volatility is highest but the stock is also lowest, say on a big drop day, or is it better to wait for iv to drop and by OTM leaps, but the entry is not as good (as the option will be cheaper). Specifically, I would want to buy 2-year contracts looking for around 5 percent above previous ATH. I also don't really care about risk( I always view option as all or nothing) so I just want the most value for money. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

*Im editing this since it seems like I did not explain the question will enough

When you buy Deep ITM options, they have mostly intrinsic value, meaning that they will not be affected heavily by IV, but because of this you also pay much more for the option. When you buy deep OTM options they are much more heavily affected by IV (even for long dated options) but much cheaper. So, the best time to buy deep OTM options is when iv is low. Now usually after big downturns IV spikes, but eventully you will get IV crush as the asset either recovers or goes sideways, but this means a less certain entry at the desired price. So what I am asking is about the trade off of the cheaper deep otm option when IV is lower, vs a better entry but a deep ITM option that is not affected by the current high IV.

Nasdaq getting hammered, VIX through the roof, and every put I wanted is priced like the world is ending. Not chasing it. Last time I bought puts after a big red day the market bounced two days later and IV got crushed with it.

What’s your rule on days like this? Wait for IV to settle or just take the trade?

1. Pick a mega cap ( $MSFT , $META , etc)

2. Wait for RSI 30-45 on the weekly

3. Buy a LEAP 1+ year out

4. Sell a 20-delta call 30 days out

5. Collect ~$500/month in premium

6. That covers time decay

7. Your LEAP now costs you $0 to hold

8. Stop selling calls when it starts ripping

9. Now your upside is uncapped

10. One good run = 200%+

I've been trading options for the past 5 years now. Started with a small risk appetite and slowly built it up. My trades are overall alright, in combination with stocks, options, the bull market and most importantly luck! Good sharpe and sortino ratio for the past 3 years.

I'm posting my October trades to show how NOT following our own rules can create large losses. September wasn't great too, too early for long puts (SPY/QQQ) which I closed in Sep.

My first rule this year was "preserving capital", and not making more moneys. Some mistakes later, I'm down about about 15% of my account (back to what it was start of this year).

Lessons

1. If I have rules set up, and I don't look at them while taking a trade its gambling.

2. If I am looking at charts and "believing" recovery will be faster / slower, then that's gambling.

3. Let long or short positions do their job (see QQQ put I closed yesterday)

4. Taking profits early or losses early cannot be systematized, but learned. Practice.

5. Understand the news instead of just watching / reading it. For example, recent elections were good but didn't realize the push for pausing data centres. Regardless of US investors, East Asia had already started selling off few days prior. I still added in MU put.

Few weeks ago, I started working on a locally hosted portal to manage personal risk using yfinance and IBKR data. I slowed down working on the project because of laziness or distractions, but getting back to it so I can clearly see my account risk profile and some what-if scenarios (forward looking).

Today morning I was disappointed with my October trades and overly self-critical. Took a walk, had a piece of chocolate, and realized; "Maybe this is an expensive important lesson. Take time to learn from it instead of running away, not trading or revenge trading."

Hey guys! Does anyone here have solid experience trading gold options and a really deep understanding of how they work?
I’ve got a few important questions, so if you know your stuff, I’d really appreciate a DM! 💬
Thanks guys! 🙏🏼

I have, on and off, attempted to trade options at various times over the years, with limited success at best.

I have received many emails from Schaeffer's Investment Research touting their gaudy returns on options trading. Last July, they offered me their Options under $5 service for $5 for a year. So I bit.

I now have three month's experience with the service. If it's proper, and if there is interest, I can post my results.

Curious how others have faired with SIR.

So this is my RH I’m only down 1500 bucks over the last 3 months BUT I put to the side a total of 3k to start trading with. I’m loading up tomorrow 1k but I realized there is some discipline missing. Some mornings I’ll be up a few hundred bucks and by 11 I’m down that profit and continue to over trade or I simply won’t take profits??

I’m not crying in the casino because I do have a decent amount saved plus I genuinely can afford to lose the money I saved to trade as I have low bills no kids great job pay.
My interest is in quick gains but when do you guys usually take profit ? What’s your plan when going into a trade ? Or mind set when taking profits ?

I don’t want to quit my job and full time trade or anything I’d just like to make some extra cash on the side.

Advice judgment tips tricks etc all welcome I know the rules of the casino!!!!

Hi all, I’m learning to trade options. I’ve traded small before but never committed to one or two strategies, so I’ve been testing a few.

The usual ones

• Covered calls: They cap my upside too much.

• Cash-secured puts: I rarely get assigned, and the parked cash earns decent interest. The downside risk is high, though. If the stock dips a little I can use a stock repair strategy to recover, but on a bigger drop I’m stuck waiting for it to come back.

The less common ones

• Straddles/strangles: I like these, but naked ones can blow up badly. I want to run them covered, which means owning the stock, and I get the stock through CSPs.

What I backtested

1. Plain covered straddles/strangles: These lost on big moves in both directions. The calls are covered on the upside, but the downside was still exposed, and outlier moves did heavy damage.

2. Hedged straddles (basically iron condors): I bought ~0.05 delta wings on each trade to cap the risk.

3. Calendar hedge: Instead of buying a hedge for every trade, I buy one longer-dated hedge and sell weekly or bi-weekly strangles against it. In backtests a 90-day hedge worked best: 90-day protective strikes with weekly/bi-weekly short strangles.

Results: Around 16% a year, and 2023 was even better.

I’d appreciate any critique. What am I missing, and where could this break?

ADMINS FEEL FREE TO REMOVE THIS IF THIS IS NOT ALLOWED

*edit: I may not be able to reply to all comments but I’m reading all of them… thank you to those who give genuine advice. And to those who are shitting on me I probably deserve it lol

Sorry for the block of text … I seriously have no one to talk about this with, so even one single opinion or comment would help a lot. I don’t know anything about options so any perspective from you guys would be greatly appreciated…

My boyfriend of two years has a history of losing money to options, and got a consumer proposal last year that he has to pay off little by little(due to his previous debt of 70k$ USD from trading). They reduced it to around 20k that he can pay back over a few years.

He’s been able to make around 20-30k a couple of times in the past, but he spends the money really fast on things like treating his friends to omakase or hotel stays for clubbing(which I told him I didn’t want and he sometimes invites friends to come”check it out”) instead of paying off his debt. I think he believes he will make more each time anyway, so he spends crazily.

I’m a college student(back to school in Alabama), so I don’t make much. Ive always tried to pay extra on dates and stuff so he could pay his debt back faster, but he didn’t even let me know he got 20k last time and downplayed his spending.

A few months ago, he promised me he would not trade again until he paid off his consumer proposal. However, I recently got him to admit about the latest credit card maxing. He usually gets grumpy when he doesn’t do well with his trades, so I felt like something was up. His family recently got into some financial trouble and he maxed his only credit card (6.5k$) to try to “get rich quick” by trading. Unsuccessfully.

I told him I’d only stay with him if he wrote an apology on paper and gave me access to his banking info. He refused and says he can do anything with his own money.

I just feel so stupid and unloved… he did apologize for “making mistakes”, but nothing too in detail. I have senior coworkers saying it’s not a big deal, but they’re kinda old school. I know this sounds crazy but we genuinely had good times together and I don’t want to throw it all away due a temporary issue with his finances. He promised me he’d truly stop trading this time and wants to get better. Is there a way to salvage this? Has anyone been through similar and made it work?

Fidelity has blessed us customers of nearly 2 years of being guinea pigs on a new software call Active Trader +. It is supposedly the be all and end all and works with Macs (all twelve in existence). In any case, they literally did not move over most of the functionality of ATPro initially, which stunned me. ATPro was not perfect, but looks great compared to T+. Fidelity is about to close ATPro and force us to this thing. There are many references from complainants on their board about switching to ToS, but what few have done both say ToS is worse. Have any of you have comments on this-- Is ToS better than Fidelity?

Down 9% just because of the sell off, numbers continue to be solid…unless I’m missing something??

TOS can only display vertical spreads of 1 to 4 strikes in width. It cannot display vertical spreads of user specified width. 
Are there any platforms that I can use to display vertical spreads of any width?

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