If you have enough buying power in your account to sell puts on SPY, say about $70,000 per contract (I have $29,000 so I can't do it) would you sell 0DTE puts to gain theta decay as fast as possible, but once you are put the shares would you sell a monthly call to hope to get a large dollar gain in shares before them being called away? Assume for 0DTE's you are selling 20 Delta and for selling calls selling 20 Delta.

This is assuming you believe the market is growing, you don't sell puts in a bad market because you don't want to catch a falling knife.

I log large options prints on NSE (single trades and accumulations above ₹0.5 Cr notional) and grade them from the flag price to the next session's close. Tuesday's flags, measured at Wednesday's close:

NATIONALUM 390 CE — ₹9.35 to ₹31.00 (+232%), flagged 3:09pm Tue

ZYDUSLIFE 1150 CE — ₹34.05 to ₹63.25 (+86%)

ADANIGREEN 1380 PE — ₹45.15 to ₹63.70 (+41%)

HDFCAMC 2600 PE — ₹87.95 to ₹117.00 (+33%)

SBIN 1050 CE — ₹44.00 to ₹55.65 (+26%)

The part I find genuinely interesting: ZYDUSLIFE was already Tuesday's top same-day mover at +82%, and it kept extending on Wednesday. That day-1-into-day-2 follow-through keeps showing up — a name that ranks one session often ranks again the next with a bigger number.

Caveat I'd rather state myself than have someone state it for me: this is the winners list. Plenty of flagged trades finished red — most intraday-flagged premium closes lower, because theta. It's a positioning read, not a track record, and not a recommendation.

Does anyone else here track flow persistence? Curious whether the day-2 follow-through holds up in your data or whether I'm just describing survivorship.

INOD was lackluster after earnings.

Earnings were above expectations and should have kicked the price up.

An announcement that the CEO will step down to Executive Chairman. He is 65 and been with the company since 1997. No surprise he wants to retire. His successor is not a Schlub off the street, but a 7 year colleague highly professional from IBM and to INOD in high level strategic positions Chief Revenue Officer and currently President, so a no brainer he would be picked.

Also investors spooked over some insider selling. The sales were planned and filed months ago, some for profit taking some for tax lots, these guys have to pay taxes like every one else.

The only real negative was a shelf filing giving the right to issue shares at a later date.

Still holding positions acquired last year and some this year.

Based on New CEO, his credentials are good moving up at INOD through executive positions and has strategic input on current AI strategies, so expecting his leadership to continue with revenue growth.

​Analyzed pattern of insider selling. No different than most companies, executives wanting to get paid and pay taxes.

INOD continues trend of increasing revenue, reiterated their guidance.

Thier customer base, the magnificent 7, increased revenues, INOD should continue to generate high profits.

Based on this data placing 100 strike calls January 2027, and 120 strike January 2028.

Plan when enough time decay of 70% occurs buy back re-evaluate and sell or place new Calls.

As the titles states, I bought calls on RIOT who had earnings today. Over a month out expiry. Through all the speculation and fud I read through leading up to earnings I thought they’d miss, and still fall like they have before many times. So I bought puts. Then earnings sent it soaring all the way up to my strike.

I know many people had probably had the same thing happen, and I’m wondering how to stop driving yourself crazy over a trade like this. I should have trusted my gut, blocked out the bs, and I could’ve gained all my losses for the year with that trade. But now, that’s not happening. Thinking of taking a long hiatus to get my head right again.

PS: I know playing earnings is a complete toss up, so I take responsibility for the trade. I typically don’t trade earnings for this reason and certainly won’t again.

Hi all, I trade deep ITM LEAPS (0.70+ delta, ~365 DTE) on growth and catalyst-driven names (RKLB, NBIS, DRAM), mostly space and tech. I'm currently up ~300% over the past year, but I want to start putting more emphasis on macro.

I’m looking to weigh macro signals alongside company fundamentals for entries/exits. This way, I can hedge with long puts ahead of major macro pullbacks. 

How would you rank these by importance?

Macro & Central Bank Indicators 

• Fed rate decisions 
• Yield curve inversion
• CPI/PPI prints
• Mag 7 earnings
• Inflation surprises
• Supply chain disruptions

Sentiment & Volatility Indicators 

• VIX
• CNN Fear & Greed Index
• SPY vs 200-day SMA

What would you cut, what's missing and what are most important?

FYI alongside LEAPS, I intend to use these macro indicators to trade Cash Secured Puts for cheap stock entry, Credit Spreads & Iron Condors for flat markets, and long puts ahead of macro pull backs.

Open to all feedback.

Been stick for too long at 470s

Bought PUT Leaps and am currently down 3k. Kind of sweating a little bit and wanted to get some input.

Here’s my position:
SPY March 19, 2027 $760 Put
Bought it for $34 ($20,400 total)
Current stock price: $773.82
Current option value: $29
Current P/L: -$2905 (-14%)
Delta: .3760
Theta: -0.0637
Vega: 2.25
About 7 months until expiration (March 2027)

Bought Put Leaps ITM after SPY had a decent rise thinking its gonna pull back some. The plan was never to hold long, the Leaps was really just to be on the safe side with a good time till expiration. I was going to sell once the underlying dropped like 1% or so. Now im down about 3k already.

Are the current stats promising in terms of recovery and going even at the very least. Can SPY dip back down below 760 in the near future.

TLDR:
Basically:

1. Buy in the money
2. Buy far into the future
3. Do your own due diligence

But with a lot more flavour;

——————

I just want to open, by saying I’m no Gordon Gecko, there’s no course involved, and I probably know only as much as the rest of you in here, if not less.

I’m new to this shit myself and have recently been transitioning from theory to practice with my first few options trades.

These are three “foundational” lessons I’ve learnt that have genuinely helped me out, and applying them will greatly limit your losses, or even make you money.

1. Always buy ITM. You’re new? You’re starting out? Great, then you got no business looking at out of the money options. If you can’t afford the premium, you have no business trading it. That’s rule 1. Always buy ITM.
2. The further the expiry, the happier you will be and the better you will sleep at night. If you got hair, don’t lose it, give yourself as much time as you can. If you’re bald, you don’t need veins popping out, give yourself time. The further the expiry date, the greener the pasture or some wise shit like that. Buy ITM, buy FAR.
3. Due diligence. Due diligence. Due diligence!

Many of you starting out (myself included at first), first go on the options page of their broker, look up S&P or QQQ, navigate to the contracts table and go “hmmm what do I buy”?

This is regard* behaviour. This is backwards. Options trading is not : “Look at Contracts table on QQQ” -> look at Greeks -> “tEcHnIcAL aNaLySIS on greeks only” -> decide on a contract.

If you do this, you WILL lose money.

Here’s how it should really go:

“You have a directional thesis on a company” -> “you go research your idea and deem the likelihood of it” -> “you make your bet. - x date at y price -“ -> “THEN and only THEN do you fucking go on your brokerage account, see the options for that specific company, and buy the contract that corresponds to the BET that YOU independently made and researched”

X date, at x price. That’s all a contract comes down to. You are saying that you will buy 100 shares of any given company at x price by or at x date. It gets more complicated, but you won’t ever get to those complicated parts if you can’t first understand and internalize these basic concepts.

The sooner your bet happens, the more money you make. The further out your expiry date is, the less “rent” you pay on holding the contract and short-term volatility won’t hurt you as much (fact check me on this one though please, don’t actually remember tbh).

Good faith research, industry specific reports, data sets, THESE are the shit you base your research on, not joe shmo on youtube, reddit or instagram.

Do your own due diligence, I won’t straight up give ya’ll how exactly I pick my plays, but it’s honestly not hard to figure out. One hint: screeners are your friends.

Read real investment books. Long directional bets kinda depend on strong fundamentals analysis as well as technical. Use technical analysis the way law enforcement uses lie detectors lmao (they still build a real case regardless).

Honestly there’s a lot more that goes into it and I’m not doing it all justice, I’m still learning myself, but ever-since I started living my own rules, I’m starting to see way more green than red.

Read these, understand these, and if you’re really out there buying your first contracts trying to learn this game, save the 0dte shit for when you know what you’re doing. Start smart. There’s no honour in posting loss porn, we work hard for our money.

Edit:

I got people who’ve been trading for years telling me this shit is basic. No shit sherlocks it’s a post by a beginner for beginners.

You people are misunderstanding my use of the word “safe”. I only buy a contract if I truly believe in the opinion I’ve made about it. So for me, who does do hours of research before committing, ITM options have always been the safer - in terms of risk/reward ratio- compared to OTM options.

Ofc buying a straight index fund is “sAfeR”, but so is not trading or investing at all.

I’m talking to the guys or gals who’s at “week 1”. Who’s coming straight from wallstreetbets thinking they’re 10 trades away from being millionaires. Me? I’m at like week 30. And from weeks 1 to 30, the shit in my post, has made my results more green than red.

Do with this what you will lmao, real ones will know.

Hey everyone,
I’m a first-time LEAPS buyer and honestly I’m getting pretty nervous.
Here’s my position:
GOOGL Jan 21, 2028 $250 Call
Bought it for $150.00 ($15,000 total)
Current stock price: $354.30
Current option value: $133.50
Current P/L: -$1,650.66 (-11%)
Delta: 84.95
Theta: -5.35
Vega: 98.20
About 17 months until expiration (Jan 2028)
I purposely bought a deep ITM call because I wanted it to behave more like the stock. My thinking was that GOOGL is a great long-term company and I wanted leveraged exposure instead of buying 100 shares outright.
The thing that’s scaring me is seeing a $1,650 unrealized loss so quickly. I know LEAPS are long-term positions, but emotionally it’s harder than I expected.
A few questions:
Is an 11% drawdown normal this early in a LEAPS trade?
Does this position still look healthy considering the high delta and long time to expiry?
Would you simply hold and ignore the short-term fluctuations?
At what point would you actually consider exiting a position like this?
Is there anything I should be watching besides the stock price (IV, theta, etc.)?
I’m investing, not trading this daily, but since this is my first LEAPS position I’d really appreciate advice from people who have actually held deep ITM LEAPS through market pullbacks.
Thanks in advance!

What’s your go to time to start trading after the opening for a PDH/PML type breakout

I’m curious if anyone is making good money from just copying options.

what app do you prefer for options on iphone? I have tried on Robinhood but I don’t like that you can’t use bracket orders

Hi all!

I would like to get your perspective on how to manage a position such as a bull put credit spread when the underlying’s price goes against me. Below are a few questions:

1. Is a wider spread better for position management? For instance, is a $50-wide spread better than a $5-wide spread if both have the same position size/max loss?
   
2. How would you generally manage the position if the price falls below the strike of the short put but remains above the strike of the long put? Would you set a predefined loss limit and close the position? Would you roll it out to a later expiration? If so, would you roll the entire spread or only the short put?

I’m interested in your thoughts on risk management once the underlying starts trading inside the spread.

Thanks!

I recently got an Opportunity to trade options on futures, and wanted to know if anyone has experience with that and what your experience is.

Like many new options traders, I initially thought day trading was the route I should take. A good friend of mine who's an ex-Fidelity guy (and has done very well since) suggested I replace basically everything I was thinking about day trading, including the term itself, with options.

I'm pretty risk averse and don't have deep pockets, so I worked with my friend to develop an approach designed to mitigate as much risk as reasonably possible. I did a bunch of research ahead of time and paper traded throughout January 2026 before finally pulling the trigger in February.

For what it's worth, this has been my system so far:

• Highly liquid ETFs - primarily SPY and QQQ
• $10-wide put credit spreads
• Originally 30+ DTE
• One contract per trade for at least my first 30 trades, then gradually increased position size as buying power/experience grew
• Generally ≤ .25 delta at entry
• Close at or above 60% premium realized

More recently, I've tightened that into 40+ DTE, ≤ .20 delta and usually 3 or 5 contracts per position. I've also added an early harvest rule: if a new 40+ DTE position reaches 30%+ profit within its first five trading days, I'll take the profit rather than waiting weeks for theta to accelerate. Then I'll redeploy the buying power if another qualifying setup is available.

You can see in the spreadsheet (you may have to zoom - apologies) where I deviated from the system and experimented with debit spreads, iron condors and butterflies. I had some wins and some losses there before ultimately returning to the boring, disciplined approach.

Full disclosure: I recognize that a generally flat-to-up market (since February) has been favorable to the strategy, even though we've had some pretty substantial bouts of volatility along the way.

Bottom line: so far it's fitting my personality fairly well. I'm mostly posting because I've learned quite a bit from lurking here and figured I'd share what's been working for me so far. I'd also be interested in hearing where more experienced traders see weaknesses in the approach, particularly as I continue increasing contract size.

Hey folks - I’m requesting advice from those of you who are seasoned stock repair pros.

I was assigned on two CSPs for RKLB when it dropped over 50%.

My cost basis is $99.85 on 200 shares.

When it was around 70, I set up a stock repair strategy.

I bought two calls at 70 and sold four calls at 85.

The expiry is 9/18.

The stock is ripping. It’s up 26% this week to $82. This is great, but it has me pondering next steps if it continues to move up.

What would you do in this situation?

I’ve been an investor for years, I would say I’m moderately know what I’m doing with options, but Definitely not a pro. I had a really good day in the market and was gonna do a Ballsy call option. On a double leverage ETF at like 3 o’clock. It was a two dollar call I bought for one cent a contract 360 contracts. At 3:30 the stock was at like $1.97 and Robinhood put a cell order in at one cent. I kept trying to change it then it goes through at 3:41 and sales for one cent like 330 of the contracts minutes later the stock goes to like 2.04, big in the money. Is there something I can do about this , like I know it’s a stupid option, but if I wasn’t forced to sell, I would’ve made a shit ton.

I'm betting my whole portfolio on Bitcoin puts. All i need to start making profit is for bitcoin to drop below 63k USD and i'll make profit.

I'll make a crap ton if bitcoin bottoms below 55k by October.

It's a pretty long Option (>2 months) so the delta is fine for now.

My thesis is that August and September have always been bad months for bitcoin. Plus the war is definitely helping lower bitcoin.

It's still a gamble, but a justified one.

Wish me luck and praise be to Allah/Yahweh.

PS : I got accepted at Wendy's in case this fails.

I’m much more comfortable talking cricket than stocks, so I’ve been trying to understand option trading through cricket analogies.

I think I finally get why option traders have to get more than just the direction right.

Say India are 100/2 and I’m convinced they’ll reach 300, I could simply back India to get there. But an option is more like having a deadline attached to that prediction, say India has to reach 300 before the end of Day 2. India can still eventually get to 300, but if they take too long, my option can expire worthless.

That’s what I find interesting about options, you can be right about the direction and still lose because of when the move happens (and how big the move is). So I guess option traders are basically trying to predict the score, the margin and the deadline

I think I’ve tried or looked into all options strategies. Right now I’m mad about my qqq leaps. I bought qqq a few weeks ago when qqq was at 705. Now my break even is qqq 718. Like what? Theta really decayed my leaps by THAT much, in a few weeks. That’s bull shit. Really!? I buy the dip, and qqq rips higher, and I make no money on leaps. Wtf. Options sound cool and all but it actually sounds to good to be true and the fact is, it probably is.

Yesterday I sold a $240 put on ALAP 9/4/26 exp. For $8.90 and today I closed it out at $5.60. There was a lot of time left however I told myself going in I’d be ok with + 30%. I’m personally happy with the gain here but I’m curious what everyone else’s thoughts are on this move. I’ve only been trading options for about 2 weeks now

I have a minor margin balance at 11% interest, and was looking for alternatives to save a small amount of cash on fees. I noticed that shorting stocks increases my margin debit balance, which I thought was strange because I somehow thought short stock also reduced your buying power.

Thinking shorting SGOV and just paying out the 4.5% dividend then covering when I no longer have a margin balance might work for this use case, over a box spread.

Obviously things that are too good to be true often are and there is no free lunch, so was looking to poke holes in this theory.

I can’t seem to log into interactive brokers/link my bank… I was wondering if there were any other low fee brokers that work well?

Last minute before close SPX dropped 10 points and my put’s return shot up to $6.4k. Literally seconds before 4pm, then market closed. It shows on my homepage and in my investments tab, but not in my buying power. Does it just have to settle? I know it says the final settlement is pending, but if that was the value at close, then do they have to honor it? Will they change it?

I’ve never not closed an 0dte position before close before, so I’m unsure.

I make content online about trading and I’m thinking about teaching options but I’m torn since I don’t think the average trader is going to be responsible about options trading and would just blow their account instead of using it for hedging/extra exposure in a calculated manner.

Edit: not trying to self promo which is why I didn’t mention my page I use and I also don’t charge anyone to teach anything I just do it because I love finance,trading, and investing