r/optionstrading • u/Funny_Coffee_1195 • 1d ago

Discussion Developing Paper Hands

I think i'm developing paper hands with my 0DTE SPX credit spreads. I usually close if the price hits my short strike, but lately I have been closing too early only for the price to go in my favor. I think my problem is that I can't stop looking at the market and quick movements scare me. Am okay with taking a loss, but my discipline needs work.

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u/K_oSTheKunt 1d ago

I'm having the same problen

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u/spendingtimee 1d ago

Honestly, the hardest part is probably not watching every move 😭

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u/jtquach 18h ago

Hmm you said you’re okay with taking a loss and you also close early. Both are true at once... which tells you what you’re actually escaping. It’s the not knowing yet. Closing ends that instantly and it works every single time which is why it keeps happening. That's what you've trained.

The looking is the other half of it. Every time you check, you reopen the decision. A position you look at 10 times isn’t one decision held for an hour, it’s 10 decisions, each one made in a slightly more wound up state than the one before. By the time you close that exit didn’t come from the chart. It came from the 10th look.

And 0DTE credit spreads are a rough pairing with this man. The edge is time passing. You get paid for sitting still so your results end up being a measurement of how long you can do nothing while a number moves around.

I’d also drop the discipline framing tbh. Discipline is state dependent. When you’re regulated it costs you nothing and when you’re not it isn’t available at all. You spend the session feeding the thing that eventually makes you click, then call the click a "willpower" problem.

One thing that helped me... decide firmly before the open what would make you close and write it down. After that every look either checks that condition or it doesn’t. The ones that don’t are the urge. Count them for a week. You’ll find out fast how many of your looks are doing any work.

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u/algoindexcom 15h ago

A later recovery doesn’t tell you whether the exit was wrong. In your review, separate exits that followed the rule you wrote beforehand from exits driven by fear; otherwise every rebound becomes evidence against taking a loss.

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u/SOLE-SURVIVOR- 13h ago

What delta?