r/options

Hey all. I'm trying to make roughly $200/day using vertical put spreads on SPY and have been targeting a 10 cent spread with about 25 contracts.

What I don't like is that the fees for SPY are about 22% of my profit, and that there's potential for assignment if the short leg goes ITM.

I know that SPX is cash settled and has lower fees but I'm not sure if the volatility in the options pricing would be slow enough for me to manage given how wild today was.

Is XSP the better fund to trade with for this purpose? I think the only downside to XSP is lower liquidity but I'm not sure hpw that would affect me. I try to close my positions at .01 spread value.

Homework: https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1sr1bys/comment/ohd4i8p/
And please share ideas after reading

Wasn't that some day?

Bigger picture for today, Stock was up 13% on Friday, 23% yesterday and now 17% today. The trap is still there. Per Ortex 320k more shorts today, short interest back to 9.08 million. Why do I say this is a trap? Well it comes down to mechanics, reg SHO requires that short selling can't be done on a downtick if the short sale restriction is triggered. Short sale restriction gets triggered if the stock drops 10% from the prior close. This means that shorts can at most push this down by 10%, any further down moves have to come from longs selling. This can certainly happen but in this setup it requires a natural seller to come to the market and sell by crossing the spread. My previous post talks about it. This means if you are short and the stock has risen by more than 10% in a day the odds are that you will be negative the next day and the day after. This is because when SSR turns on it lasts for the day and the next day. So now you likely sit around while the market either goes sideways the next day as well, and that is you best case scenario or worse goes up. Check out the history on yahoo finance and do the math. Look up the nasdaq short sale trigger times here:
https://nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=shortsalecircuitbreaker (just switch the date in the hyperlink)
This has been happening since the 27th of March and I was in this since April 2nd and sat there stuck. The other rule that applies for this stock is the LULD (halts). This is a tier 1 stock and the limit is 5% meaning this goes into a halt anytime it moves more than 5% in either direction in 5 minutes to the give the market a chance to breathe (I like this, that is why crypto is crazy 24x7 with no halts you wake up and BTC is down 50% exaggerates irrationality, that is why I have never yet traded crypto). Now for the shorts this is basically a second impediment and slows the progression down. You have no idea how much I cursed at these rules over the last two weeks. I mean the stock is irrationally high and it needs to be brought down, short sellers are doing a service, why are we getting F'ed doing this? That is why shorting is such a risky business. So now we have people from Friday, Monday and Today all trapped for 2 more days. So either they chicken out taking a loss and buying in the process pushing this further up or get auto liquidated by the broker. This is why they call it a "squeeze". So if anything the setup if even worse today, a lot more piled on and stock is up 17%. Everything I said yesterday is relevant, this keeps going. Or does it? Well there is always something from the left field when you talk about the markets. Let's see the current list of players in this match:

1. SRS and Pentwater (they hold 100+%) and they aren't selling. That is "my" assumption and I will stick with it for the rest of the analysis. You can disagree and that gives you room to play this your way. Read my previous post and some of the comments where I explain the reasons. Google it. Their strategy is different.
2. ETFs hold it passively. Look up the 13F holders list for CAR, there are websites that will let you lookup for free. 2-3 million shares with Blackrock and Vanguard. Those sit in their ETFs and mostly locked up. It depends on whether there is inflow or outflow from the ETFs for the day and shares trickle in and out. Right now market is risk on, and capital is slowly piling across the whole spectrum. SPY, QQQ were first but now small caps are in play too. So on the balance the ETFs are soaking up float for CAR. (Look up which hold it)
3. On 27th Avis declared 5 million shares of ATM offering. This will be the true new supply. We can't tell for sure but my conviction is that they are either done or almost done. Add up all the volume from the 30th on. 75 million shares. Easy to supply 5 million shares in that volume. Look up the VCX subs and their daily trickle. They have been supplying 10-15% of the volume every day and the market has stayed sideways mostly. 5mm of 75mm is only 7%. they are done or close to done. Of course it is tactical for them but remember even they can't predict the price. It is not very different from any of your situation when you hold a winning stock and are faced with the situation of whether to hold longer or sell. Well you ain't knowing the future so just DCA. That's all they can do. They also want to be done before the next board meeting to get books in order and plan some announcements. Meeting is on 7th May. So at this point I am not worried about them coming in to crash this. Even if they have some left this is so juicy to sit on the offer and soak out the buyside flow from the shorts. What implication does this have for the shorts? Well if you conservatively assume that they got $400 average price for the 5 million shares they made 2 billion. For the new 40 million share total that is $50 cash per share on the books. Of course you can do fancy DCF analysis but for a simpleton like me, the stock before the squeeze was 110-120 and now there is 50 cash so this ain't going below 170. Probably stays much higher. Because as I described above the SSR mechanics make it a long ride down. And sometimes market just hangs out. Again back to VCX example. $20 NAV went to $550 and has hung out at $100ish since then. It's been a month. That was one big reason for me to close out my short.
4. Pension funds, hedge funds hold it. Canada Pension Plan is a big one. These are run by fund managers with discretion. I wonder what they do. Obviously take some gains so they will sell. But this is about 1 million or so shares. They won't fully exhaust I think, just trim. So may be they have already done this, and if they intend to they are professionals and will know the dynamics so not crashing this (give it an outside chance they are not that smart, the world is full of surprises).
5. Long Short Quant hedge funds. These just auto trade baskets throughout the day. Think AQR, Two Sigma. They primarily use factor models like Barra/MSCI. These factors proxy in for the fundamental analysis part like P/E ratios etc. So it allows you to sort of add the fundamental piece in a Quant way, You generally don't analyze each stock individually. These see low borrow fee and float to short available and also see that stock is out of line with what the factors tell the model. So they can sell. I suspect some of the intraday LULD triggers are these. These funds operate on the whole gamut of holding periods from intraday to weeks. May be the quant looks at the daily performance and outliers but not sure how often they override and trade a stock on its own.
6. Wholesalers, these are the most interesting guys. They execute all the retail orders. Citadel, Jane etc. They have the best data on the whole situation. Retail orders come in and they know exactly which one is going short and who is long. They can build a fine grained picture of how much of retail that came to them was short and what time of the day. There are 3 big wholesalers and flow gets subdivided into them and they can extrapolate from their own flow to get the whole picture. They can calculate who is feeling how much pain. They model retail behavior and know what is the typical tendency of shorts when it comes to pain tolerance. Oh how I would love to have this data. Right now if the retail is going short all they need to do is build the long position knowing the mechanics (normally they exhaust most of it to not carry a big position overnight). They can then sell it back a few days later to make a killing. Nice ain't it? Well not so simple, the problem is that Citadel also has an options market making desk. They might be getting crushed and need deltas to hedge. The market is volatile and it is expensive to get deltas. Well you transfer over the wholesaler desk position over internally. The trader on the wholesale desk will complain because that was his PnL, he had the retail by the balls. So they mark his position to a premium and MMs at a discount and come end of the year his bonus is decided on this higher PnL. Net the firm doesn't go out to the street to pick up the shares. This is just internal trader accounting. Nothing prints on tape anywhere, nobody knows. So we can't say for sure what wholesalers will do. Likely holding it if Options is long delta. Well didn't I complain about how I would love to have this data. Let me show you something.

https://preview.redd.it/f63hhtgr5nwg1.png?width=1658&format=png&auto=webp&s=51beb9b09901bd18cd2ebc11094e6b0808a6d9c2

This is the net retail flow for Monday! How did I get this? Well look up databento and polygon.io. Pay up for the premium trade level data. Read this:
https://utpplan.com/DOC/UtpBinaryOutputSpec_3.0.pdf

Sometimes the most boring things are the most useful and nobody reads it. You can read this, think through it and pair it with the data to segment out the retail trades! I won't tell you anymore, consider this a Senior year final project. Will take you a weekend to figure out, you've got AI to help. What does this tell us? Well yesterday Retail started the day net long (buying) to net short as the market rose. Does this help? Not on its own. It can mean that retail longs rationally sold into a rising market. Or that retail got enticed by a rising market and went short who knows? Well I was obsessively looking at the IBKR shortable share count and it kept going down as the market went up. This gives me confidence that it is the latter, retail got short net. I mean come on anyone looks at this goes "tops in". Even though I don't have wholesaler level data but I think I know this with high confidence. I won't have today's data until midnight though so wait for it. But going by psychology the same thing happened today.

So reason over this, who has incentive to sell in the market in a way to crash it? I don't see anyone, all those people are smarter than me and you. This means it goes on. Or does it? Where are the mavericks like Andrew Left from Citron when you need him? He did the VCX short and I explained it here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VCX_Fundrise/comments/1s4mljy/what_citron_did_today/ (Read some of my comments in that post as well)

https://preview.redd.it/ewjtpzor6nwg1.png?width=619&format=png&auto=webp&s=bef07004b9f3b86125a15d7c9a7035db4575c28d

The problem is that the situation over there was different, no shorts trapped. And yes I need to acknowledge my mistakes. At that time I had thought that shorts had caused the VCX rally by getting busted u/AnyPortInAHurricane had castigated me by saying there "ain't any shorts in it". You were right man, I stand corrected, it was all hype driven. But moving on that doesn't apply here. The retail shorts are trapped and screaming for help. They will buy anytime this goes down. That's why it is so hard to push it down. I was wondering what happened today towards the close when it went down for a while. I was wondering if someone is trying to make it happen. But see what happened above.

See it needs a lot of capital and selling pressure to push this down. And normally there are two approaches to shorting. The fundamentals driven long term (AQR long/short baskets) or the volatile intraday push it down and buy back to close out within minutes. Guys on the first camp might already have left knowing they went short at 90 and it ain't ever going back there. The technical Citron kind of guys will find it too risky. Look at the red candles. You had to sell that many shares but then it comes right back up at you and runs you over before you can buy at the lower price. Too risky to profit from it. But as they say it, the moment makes a man. This is getting too juicy and it is a Billion dollar PnL idea for someone who can make this happen. Plenty of creative people are working on this as we speak. It is going to come from the left field. So think about this and if someone has any ideas please share. I would like to know, And yes when I posted my original post yesterday some of the responses were, "tops in", "too late now". Well remember, what is your edge? You just made a banal statement. You were proven wrong today. And I don't say this with a spite but if you think so please let me know how this will happen. Knowing this is so critical to position well for this. Otherwise it is exactly the same story as yesterday. I have learnt to stay humble and happened listen to Andrew Mack's podcast at the right time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlhuKAIenw0&t=1204s
He mentions how retail doesn't cut losers soon and hold winners long. I had done all my analysis on the weekend, was up until 4 am looking at the data (reminded me of Uni) to piece it together. I risked liquidation on my account if I got this wrong and losing money if I closed out. The "tops in" crowd would have told me to keep holding. I had been grinding it for 2 weeks. I was sleep deprived and closed out for a 55k loss. Put yourself in my shoes. I had 11k on my options hedges, this could reverse and I lose it all. I have started trading a month ago and this would have erased most of it. So thanks Andrew, even though you will never see this but this helped when it mattered most. And now I am up 11k with 3 tickets left!

I had more thoughts but this is getting long, so some other time,. Please share any realistic ideas on how this resolves.

Today something happened that I have never seen before in my 7 years of trading options. I have been watching the short squeeze on $CAR (Avis). The hourly, daily and weekly RSI has been around 97. That’s absurdly overbought. Last Thursday I was looking at options and the premiums of course are crazy. I bought 5, $180 puts with a June expiration for $800 each. My thinking is that when the squeeze runs out of gas it could easily drop 50%. Maybe I could overcome the IV crush. I analyzed it with Xynth and it said that in those conditions $500 a share was likely the top. Wrong! Friday rolled around and it squeezed up to $600. My puts went down but not terribly. I figured it was because my puts were so far OTM. This morning $CAR shot up 20%. I thought, dang I’m going to get smoked. The numbers flashed crazy for a few minutes and then all went to zeros. I think trading was temporarily halted because the ticker quit moving. Or maybe it was a glitch. When the numbers came back the bid ask was crazy wide. Bid to ask was $300 - $2000. I thought, hmmm. So I put in a limit sell order for $1,100. After about 10 minutes I got filled at $1,200. All 5 of them! So basically in 2 days the ticker went up 30% but my put options also went up 30%. I’m not sure if the IV move is that insane of there was a glitch. Any way the stock pulled back 10% and I put a limit buy order in for 3 of the same option at $800. And got filled.  Yes, I am aware that I’m playing with fire but wow that’s wild.

I just got a pop-up for Extended Options trading:

8:15P-9:25A EST

SPX, XSP, VIX, RUT

I received it by searching for ticker SPX.

Edit: Seems to also be on Schwab (ToS). Please post if it is available on other platforms. Does not seem to be on Tasty yet.

Also I’m fairly confident if you open a position at 8:15 and sell before 8:15 the following trading day it will count as a Day-Trade.

Yoooo I hope your doing well. I’m here asking for any guidance,insight or advice

I trade spreads IWM QQQ SPY tbh im refining my strategy daily after wins, losses, etc. Im an electrical apprentice pretty active job and sometimes it makes trading a little difficult and overwhelming… sometimes im rushing or I miss trades from not having a moment to pull out my phone then I check and missed my entry and im altering my strategy to try and fit my life and spreads has seemed to be the best fit 😂 I’ve thought about forex before or after work and ive been paper trading it practicing sharpening my craft … not greedy for gains just want a second income really for a bit more freedom I save and invest most of my money that doesn’t go towards bills so a second income wont hurt…

But I only enter from 1 to 3:45, 5 to 10DTE, shoot for .15-.25 delta then I TP ASAP I try not to close same day because of PDT and I recently noticed put spreads are more consistent.

Any tips, guidance, or criticism I’ll take it, very dedicated and looking too make some $ in the market… don’t need 10K days 🤣🤣

yet.

I've been watching the trading culture in Asia for a while now and there's this massive, obsession with selling naked puts as the "ultimate" income strategy.

The pitch I keep hearing: “Just collect the premium...."

The reality? You're picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. Capped reward with uncapped downside.

Here's what clicked for me. The big boys or some US based traders I meet online, are on the other side of these trades. So while retail out in Asia are playing "passive income provider," prop/prop-type traders are paying the premium retail is selling. They're the ones holding the risk-managed long vol side.

I actually stumbled onto a long options strategy from an ex-Goldman guy awhile back and it completely changed how I think about this. Here's what it did for me:

- Max loss is known before I even enter the trade

- Less anxiety, as it shifted the way I viewed risk

- A more mechanical way of trading, so p&l becomes less volatile.

So my question to the sub: Why is retail (and particularly out in Asia), so obsessed with naked selling when defined-risk is mathematically better for long-term gain? Is it impatience? Is it lack of education? Or are banks just really good at marketing this “income stream” to clients who don't understand the simple risk that stocks can always go lower and lower and lower.... or even to zero? (Think 2008 or even CS at 88 cents now)

Was beating QQQ consistently since August last year, but then we had a violent crash and then 13 consecutive green days. Got assigned on my short legs, which I had to sell as I didn't have that much cash. Then, sold some OTM calls during beginning of recovery. Now OTM calls are in money and I have to sell OTM puts as hedge. Now, I am 6% below QQQ for my performance. If the market crashes again (and rises again), the difference will be bigger.

This ✓ shaped recovery makes me realizing that the whole point of wall street firms and hedge funds are moving stock prices from A to B. It could be to C or back to A later, but they will earn the money both ways.

This brings to me that delta-neutral OTM strangles could be the best buy side strategy for someone who doesn't have time to analyze stock tickers. Open 45 to 60 DTE OTM strangles for a ticker when IV rank is below 30%, set a limit (e.g., 30%) and then wait. We can even scalp the strangles if the stock moves just a little.

Another good thing is OTM strangles kind of neutralize my OTM short strangles.

What is the take of this subreddit on this? The rule of thumb is not to be greedy and stick with exit plan.

I know i'm leaving a bit one the table buying back an option that is well OTM and then selling the next days but I am wondering if that is offset by a slightly higher premium (due to theta) on selling the following days call the day before. An example:

I'm at 84% gain for my 4/21 SPY calls. 12 points OTM so not going to come back today. I can let it ride and get that last .10 per contract and then in the AM purchase that days call. With the volatility lately I wonder if this is a better option as nobody knows what is going to happen in the world that evening in the next AM to make SPY go through the roof. IN fact, 3 times this month I've had to buy back options at quite the loss that were well below a 20 delta when purchased the night before. So let's say I sell a 20 Delta 711C at 3:55EST for .74 and the straight opens again and SPY shoots up to 712 at opening. Now, had i let that previous days option expire worthless and netted that .10 I also can buy that days option at the given price and not be ITM at the open of the market like I would be had I bought back the previous days call. I suppose that my question is, is the theta decay of waiting until the next day to buy that day's call offset by the extra premium I'd get my letting the previous days option expire worthless?

I know it goes both ways and bad news can make that call worthless very quickly too but it seems these swings lately have been capping my upside much more than expiring worthless mid-day.

Thanks much
D

Apologies in advance if this is a poorly framed question. I’m asking because I’m genuinely trying to improve my understanding of how this actually works.

I saw a post from a Japanese investor arguing that, for a name like NVDA, option market makers’ hedging activity matters more for price action than spot supply and demand, and that last week’s close above 200 may signal that MMs are starting to unwind downside hedges.

Is this actually a correct understanding of how the options market works?

I get that MM hedging can influence short-term moves, but this explanation feels a bit too strong to me.

Would appreciate it if someone knowledgeable could explain what parts are valid and what parts are being overstated.

CAR

Stock is at 608 compared to analyst price targets of 90-150. Thoughts? How do puts look to you?

https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/1jy9dss/tastytrade_requires_net_minimun_of_15000_to_place/?sort=new

XSP Calendar Spreads are now $15,000 margin on tasty effective today 21/4/26.

This thread continues from the previous one by u/vol7228

>Our margin department maintains specific capital requirements for accounts trading XSP calendar spreads. The following guidelines establish eligibility criteria for hedge relief on short XSP options positions. Accounts must maintain the minimum $15,000.00 net liquidating value threshold to continue trading XSP calendar spreads with hedge relief. Any account falling below this threshold will automatically revert to naked margin requirements for all short XSP options positions until the minimum balance is restored.

>15k for XSP, 25k for SPX

Margin requirements for calendar spreads have aggravated on tasty - where XSP Calendar Spreads are now on high margin requirements. SPX Calendar Spreads appear to have increased from 15k to 25k.

Please check your positions. How many of you are in an XSP position now? Did you receive the Margin Call email because of this?

Is this how tastytrade support really works? You have to contact them to find out new requirements?

Both metals have take a big hit, and IV on the April 24 puts is elevated sharply while May 1 IV is roughly equal in value and stable

Pretty easy money on the short duration calendar here with a hedged delta

I have 100 shares of Meta and wanted to buy some protection after the earnings.

I was debating between just buying a protected put ($650) or do a debit spread- buy a $650 put(0.3 delta) and sell a $570(.1 delta) put. Expiry is 5/1 for all.

Ended up going with debit spread for this trade (ad I wanted to try my first vertical spread trade)

What's a good heuristic to choose between buying a put vs debit spread?

Like I said, I'm new to verical spreads. The most advanced stuff I've done is the wheel strategy.

Hey guys, for a while now I’ve been seeing new or inexperienced traders struggle to find the right path to understanding options. At the same time, a huge number of people seem to trade on Robinhood, mostly just betting on direction with 0DTE, with no real risk management, no hedging, no portfolio analysis, no margin understanding, and no fundamental, technical, or quantitative analysis. Basically nothing.

For people who don’t know where to start, but who seriously want to commit to options trading, I would strongly suggest this path:

First, get serious and set clear rules for yourself. In my opinion, don’t trade 0DTE. Forget Robinhood. Use a proper platform like Interactive Brokers. For people in Europe, we don’t have that many choices, and IBKR is by far one of the best for serious traders. Ideally use TWS for active trading, and mobile for monitoring. Thinkorswim and Tastytrade are also worth looking at.

Start by learning the basics, especially the main Greeks and how they change over time. Learn how theta speeds up, when vega starts to weaken, how gamma behaves in the last days before expiration, and how rho matters if you trade longer-dated options. For now, you don’t need things like vanna and charm right away, but learn them later once you really understand the basic Greeks and volatility.

Then start learning volatility trading: IV vs RV, skew, smile, forward vol, and related concepts. In my opinion, that is where the real edge is, much more than trying to guess short-term direction.

Learn as much as you can about portfolio-based options trading. Have a small group of tickers you know very well, from different sectors, and use hedging actively. Up to 10 tickers is enough, and even 5 can be more than enough.

A lot of this can be learned by really studying IBKR TWS, plus reading Natenberg and the last two books from Euan Sinclair.

Learn fundamental analysis. If you trade indexes, learn how to read FOMC, CPI, PMI.. That also helps with stocks. Always try to think one or two steps ahead, over the next 2 weeks to 5 months, because in the very short term you mostly just see noise and the longer term ears your edge. For me, 2w - 5m is the best. Learn how to read earnings properly. Not just “NVDA beat expectations, I’m buying everything,” but look at long-term investment, free cash flow, operating margin, ROIC, the balance sheet, insider behavior etc..

Also study sector rotation. What is growing, what is slowing down, and how geopolitics affects different sectors?

Important is to understand the cost of money. Know where bonds and the US dollar are, what inflation and interest rates are doing. Cheaper money usually helps indexes and tech, while expensive money creates pressure. Learn about repos and swaps too. Go as deep as you can. It’s a broad topic, but extremely important if you want to understand how money flows through markets.

Learn how to use GEX too. It helps more with shorter-term strategies, where the risk is much higher, so read it more from the perspective of what smaller players want, and try to think like a bigger player.

For technical analysis, use things like EMA and VWAP only after you’ve already made the decision based on fundamentals, your broader ideas, and your portfolio structure. Those indicators are for entry timing, not for building the whole thesis.

Microstructure is crazy important. On a demo account, practice opening and closing positions with different strategies so you get a real feel for execution and see how much spreads and gaps actually cost you. The more demo practice, the better.

After that, keep a journal and track your work for a year. When you see that your process is solid and results are consistent, then start with real money.

Good luck guys.

We call this the weekly Safe Haven thread, but it might stay up for more than a week.

For the options questions you wanted to ask, but were afraid to.
There are no stupid questions.   Fire away.
This project succeeds via thoughtful sharing of knowledge.
You, too, are invited to respond to these questions.
This is a weekly rotation with past threads linked below.

---

###BEFORE POSTING, PLEASE REVIEW THE BELOW LIST OF FREQUENT ANSWERS. .
..

---

As a general rule: "NEVER" EXERCISE YOUR LONG CALL!
A common beginner's mistake stems from the belief that exercising is the only way to realize a gain on a long call. It is not. Sell to close is the best way to realize a gain, almost always.
Exercising throws away extrinsic value that selling retrieves.
Simply sell your (long) options, to close the position, to harvest value, for a gain or loss.
Your break-even is the cost of your option when you are selling.
If exercising (a call), your breakeven is the strike price plus the debit cost to enter the position.
Further reading:
Monday School: Exercise and Expiration are not what you think they are.

As another general rule, don't hold option trades through expiration.

Expiration introduces complex risks that can catch you by surprise. Here is just one horror story of an expiration surprise that could have been avoided if the trade had been closed before expiration.

---

Key informational links
• Options FAQ / Wiki: Frequent Answers to Questions
• Options Toolbox Links / Wiki
• Options Glossary
• List of Recommended Options Books
• Introduction to Options (The Options Playbook)
• The complete r/options side-bar informational links (made visible for mobile app users.)
• Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options (Options Clearing Corporation)
• Binary options and Fraud (Securities Exchange Commission)
.

---

Getting started in options
• Calls and puts, long and short, an introduction (Redtexture)
• Options Trading Introduction for Beginners (Investing Fuse)
• Options Basics (begals)
• Exercise & Assignment - A Guide (ScottishTrader)
• Why Options Are Rarely Exercised - Chris Butler - Project Option (18 minutes)
• LEAPS calls explained - Chris Butler - Project Option (13 minute video)
• I just made (or lost) $___. Should I close the trade? (Redtexture)
• Disclose option position details, for a useful response
• OptionAlpha Trading and Options Handbook
• Options Trading Concepts -- Mike & His White Board (TastyTrade)(about 120 10-minute episodes)
• Am I a Pattern Day Trader? Know the Day-Trading Margin Requirements (FINRA)
• How To Avoid Becoming a Pattern Day Trader (Founders Guide)

---

Introductory Trading Commentary
   • Monday School Introductory trade planning advice (PapaCharlie9)
  Strike Price
   • Options Basics: How to Pick the Right Strike Price (Elvis Picardo - Investopedia)
   • High Probability Options Trading Defined (Kirk DuPlessis, Option Alpha)
  Breakeven
   • Your break-even (at expiration) isn't as important as you think it is (PapaCharlie9)
  Expiration
   • Options Expiration & Assignment (Option Alpha)
   • Expiration times and dates (Investopedia)
  Greeks
   • Options Pricing & The Greeks (Option Alpha) (30 minutes)
   • Options Greeks (captut)
  Trading and Strategy
   • Fishing for a price: price discovery and orders
   • Common mistakes and useful advice for new options traders (wiki)
   • Common Intra-Day Stock Market Patterns - (Cory Mitchell - The Balance)
   • The three best options strategies for earnings reports (Option Alpha)

---

Managing Trades
• Managing long calls - a summary (Redtexture)
• The diagonal call calendar spread, misnamed as the "poor man's covered call" (Redtexture)
• Selected Option Positions and Trade Management (Wiki)

Why did my options lose value when the stock price moved favorably?
• Options extrinsic and intrinsic value, an introduction (Redtexture)

Trade planning, risk reduction, trade size, probability and luck
• Exit-first trade planning, and a risk-reduction checklist (Redtexture)
• Monday School: A trade plan is more important than you think it is (PapaCharlie9)
• Applying Expected Value Concepts to Option Investing (Option Alpha)
• Risk Management, or How to Not Lose Your House (boii0708) (March 6 2021)
• Trade Checklists and Guides (Option Alpha)
• Planning for trades to fail. (John Carter) (at 90 seconds)
• Poker Wisdom for Option Traders: The Evils of Results-Oriented Thinking (PapaCharlie9)

Minimizing Bid-Ask Spreads (high-volume options are best)
• Price discovery for wide bid-ask spreads (Redtexture)
• List of option activity by underlying (Market Chameleon)

Closing out a trade
• Most options positions are closed before expiration (Options Playbook)
• Risk to reward ratios change: a reason for early exit (Redtexture)
• Guide: When to Exit Various Positions
• Close positions before expiration: TSLA decline after market close (PapaCharlie9) (September 11, 2020)
• 5 Tips For Exiting Trades (OptionStalker)
• Why stop loss option orders are a bad idea

---

Options exchange operations and processes
• Options Adjustments for Mergers, Stock Splits and Special dividends; Options Expiration creation; Strike Price creation; Trading Halts and Market Closings; Options Listing requirements; Collateral Rules; List of Options Exchanges; Market Makers
• Options that trade until 4:15 PM (US Eastern) / 3:15 PM (US Central) -- (Tastyworks)

---

Brokers
• USA Options Brokers (wiki)
• An incomplete list of international brokers trading USA (and European) options

---

Miscellaneous: Volatility, Options Option Chains & Data, Economic Calendars, Futures Options
• Graph of the VIX: S&P 500 volatility index (StockCharts)
• Graph of VX Futures Term Structure (Trading Volatility)
• A selected list of option chain & option data websites
• Options on Futures (CME Group)
• Selected calendars of economic reports and events

---

Previous weeks' Option Questions Safe Haven threads.

Complete archive: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

SPY at 707.66, sitting one strike under the gamma flip at 709.36. Net GEX is -$220M, so dealer hedging amplifies moves below the flip and supports them above. Call wall and put wall both pile into 710, which makes that the fight into expiry.

QQQ (645) and IWM (276.51) are still positive gamma. Only SPY is carrying short-gamma weight. That's the bit I find interesting.

Two conditional paths, not a forecast:

- Reclaim 709.36 and dealer flow flips supportive. Tape gravitates toward the 710 wall.

- Stay below 709.36 and the charm pivot is destabilizing into close. Any VIX extension from 19.23 gets absorbed by dealer selling (net VEX -$205B).

On vol, VRP is -3.07% (ATM IV 14.9 vs HV20 17.97). Front-week premium is underpriced relative to what the tape's actually been doing. But term structure is in contango (VIX9D 18.46, VIX 19.23, VIX3M 21.30), so 30-day forward vol between month 1 and month 2 prices around 22.3, which is above realized.

So the question isn't "sell vol or buy vol" in general. It's where the carry actually lives. Front week looks like a trap for premium sellers. Back-month carry is where contango pays you.

Structure that matches the setup: **calendar, 30-45 DTE long leg, 7-10 DTE short leg.** You collect the contango, and the front short is small enough that a headline tick doesn't wreck you.

Why not a straight iron condor? Widening wings doesn't fix the entry price on the front leg. You're still selling IV below realized. The condor only works if you think IV catches down to implied, and I don't think that's the base case while the tape's chopping on Hormuz headlines. Fair if you see it the other way.

Cross-asset context. MOVE at 65.70 isn't moving, so rates vol isn't confirming the equity repricing. VVIX/VIX at 5.15 is in the normal band, so no jump-risk premium being paid. F&G 69 (Greed). Positioning isn't panicked.

What would kill the thesis (naming it upfront so no one has to dig):

- MOVE clears 75. Rates vol confirms, credit channel opens, this stops being an equity-only wobble.

- IWM flips negative gamma before SPY reclaims 709.36. Small caps leading deterioration, not a SPY-only story.

- VVIX/VIX expands past 6. Jump risk getting priced, cut size on anything short vol.

- SPY reclaims 709.36 and holds. Calendar still works but the 710 pin becomes the dominant gravity and the divergence setup is gone.

I watch IWM net GEX more than SPY for the early read. Weakest cushion usually gives first.

Not investment advice.

source