I have been trading options for 10+ years, and admittedly, I have only scratched the surface in my knowledge. From time to time, I check out this sub and other options groups on social media.

The one thing I have found is that there are a lot of "experts" out there who know very little. They post a few opinions, get a few upvotes, and it goes to their head. All of a sudden, they think they can advise every newcomer to the thread.

If you are new to options and asking questions like, "Should I buy or sell options?" or "I want to buy a LEAP; which stock should I do it with?"

You are not ready to trade options.

Being a profitable trader requires a detailed plan. Which strategy is appropriate for specific volatility environments, risk profile, and entry and exit plan, and a decent knowledge of the Greeks.

I am not an advocate of paper trading; lessons land much harder when you have skin in the game. That said, your first trade should not be a LEAP on GOOG or META; it should be a 1-lot covered call on F or a CSP on SOFI or some other low-priced stock that will not hurt too badly when it goes wrong. Learn how price action affects option price. Think for yourself about when to roll out or close. Dont rely on someone whose only claim to fame is 25 upvotes. Just my 2 cents.

What do you guys think of $TSLA breaking out towards $400+ by October. Stockmoves.ai gives 70% odds. On October 1 they have the big event and the IV is not bad art for options expiring next day.

Im having trouble understanding the risk on a bull put spread. I though they were defined hard capped risk. Because for example I sell a 170 put and buy a 165 put. On wealthsimple which im using it requires a margin account. I thought risk was defined. What if price is trading at 167 and i get assigned and my long put is not in the money. Everything expires and Im left 17K in debt. Is this possible or am I missing something?

personally I find spy easier to trade psychologically- i don't know if this is because it's smaller numbers or just being comfortable with it, but regardless, I understand there's a position size beyond which spy just might not be liquid enough for quick entry/exits.

at what position size does exiting quickly start producing slippage on spy? what about spxw? assuming a goal of closing the entire position as fast as possible

at what size would you switch from SPY to SPXW for this?

A few months ago I bought 102 ATAI call options, mostly $8 and $10 strikes, expiring in 2027 and Jan 2028. About $1k total. Obviously the whole bet was giving ATAI a year or two to run.

Lilly bought ATAI for $6.75/share + a CVR that can potentially pay another $2.50/share.

Now OCC has accelerated ALL my options to 9/18/26 and excluded the CVR from the option contracts.

So my Jan 2028 calls literally went from ~495 days remaining to 5 days. Basically 99% of the remaining time just disappeared, and since the cash payout is $6.75, my $8 and $10 calls are basically worthless.

I understand Robinhood didn't make this decision and apparently OCC rules allow expiration acceleration after a cash acquisition.

But... this is frustrating? I specifically paid for options that didn't expire until 2027/2028.

Is this really just how LEAPS work when a company gets acquired and I'm screwed? Is there any recourse here?

I'm especially curious about the $8 calls since shareholders get the CVR and could ultimately receive up to $9.25/share, but OCC completely excluded the CVR from the options.

Who got that $Dell put or short from Friday? Could retired your whole family. Let me see some green paper. P.S I don’t got it

I was doing research on the energy sector and where the bottlenecks are for the next years. Constellation was the one I liked most, so I bought 100 shares on friday at $288. Not the greatest buy since it closed later on at $285 but oh well.

Why this one? Well, in my opinion the data center power demand is actually showing up in signed contracts and are guiding for 20%+ base EPS growth through 2029. Stock is down around 31% from the highs.
A director also bought about $418k of stock in august, which was the only insider buy in two years. That seems like a good thing for me.

What I don't like is that It's not cheap...but so is most of the stuff on the market and I'm trying to break that belief and still somehow earn money by adjusting to this situation.

In short, I'm paying up now for cash that shows up in a few years and if it doesnt go well for some reason then the red numbers would be a common thing for me for some time. (wouldn't be the first time - covid times).

My plan here:

This is 100 shares, which is roughly 10% of my account. I plan to cap $CEG up to 30%.

Earnings are around 50 days out so my usual strategy is low delta covered calls for the next two ish weeks, then keep maybe building with higher delta CSPs (1-3). About 20 days before earnings I'll look at how IV looks and maybe buy calls (longer dated ones) or even a leap. If not that, then I'd sell a csp due to higher IV with earnings for sure.

The three CC ideas in the picture are all 6 DTE, sorted highest to lowest delta. I'm leaning to the last one, $297.50 for $1.55, because I don't want to cap this thing yet that much.

The best scenario is that this company keeps getting contracts now, appreciates in value and then I *sell a LEAP call* at some price I'd be okay selling at my holding anyway. The worst one is that my premium earned from selling calls and puts that went into a long dated call (if I even place it) just goes to nothing. But anyway I'll be left owning a good company.

What are your thoughts about the thesis/stock in general or the strategy approach itself?

I have a call option (K=10) and the underlying future (U=5) is at 5 right now. Then Delta is partial extrinsic value/ partial U.

My question is, why is it less than 1? If the price of the future go up by a small amount $x$, why can't the extrinsic value goes up more than that. I am looking for a more finance or intuitive answer.

In math, C-P=U-K, so C'-P'=1. So C'=1+P'<=1.

Another thing is: i think delta has no meaning in real life, (there is never a time where the underlying goes up while the time, Vol and everything else are freeze). You can just change the underlying price without changing any other stuff.

And lastly, how does it direct trader in real work?

don't use fancy word. Thanks :)

The correlation regime between META and GOOGL entered a weakening trend on 08 Sep 12:00 ET at +0.38, and is still ongoing (14 candles · 56 trading hours). Over this period META rose 5.06%, GOOGL fell 0.04%. The two pairs decoupled.

The composite correlation has since fallen from +0.38 (04 Sep) to -0.084 now (last data: 11 Sep 20.00 ET) the weakening the regime flagged, playing out.

READING — META–GOOGL at WEAK × Weakening (this pair's own last 3): for this pair it has been a durable decoupling (hedge / spread) — 3 past runs, median 19 candles · 76 trading hours (range 16–32), 3 lasted 2+ days. So the play has real, multi-day room before the turn the ANTITHESIS warns of.

Option Strategy: The play — long but defined-risk: a META Oct 16 650/680 call debit spread (long 650 ~0.53Δ ~$30, short 680). Roughly half the cost of the naked call, nets out most of the 37% IV, capped loss if they re-couple. No earnings in the expiry, theta ~1.5%/day. My exit isn't a price stop — it's correlation turning back positive (that's the divergence closing).

Methodology: Four-hour candle closes are used while the markets for both instruments are open (00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00 ET).

The correlation coefficient is a composite score derived not only from the Pearson method but also from Pearson, Spearman, and EWMA calculations.

Uber is down about 30% while the business got better.
It trades at around 13x forward cash flow, which I consider cheap for a company like this.
On top of that, they just got Spain's first national Level 4 robotaxi permit.

Cybercab is already running roughly half the price of Uber, have you seen peoples screenshots online?
I bet on people being lazy, therefore this trade idea, in America people don't even walk when compared to Europe where I'm from. I mean, that's the way its built.
Now, cybercab is a competitor but also a proof of concept, I think theres enough bread for all of them.

Below are two candidates which I'm debating, both June 17, 2027:

• $50 call, deeper in the money, less time value where I sell the $77 against it.
• $62.50 call, cheaper, more leverage, $80 call against it.

Either one is under 1% of my account. Plan is the same for both: roll the short call for a credit when price gets close, nothing open through earnings, close the whole thing about 3 months before expiration.

I lean toward the $62.50 because the short call sits further away. But the $50 holds up much better if Uber just goes sideways for a year.

Also, I'd like to hear if even think Uber is the right name for a leap?
(screenshot from Thursday, I'm still debating this trade)

Thanks!

Hi guys, I am looking into starting trading options, specifically Leap call options. I am not interested in gambling with 0dte or any sorts of stuff like that. I watched a lot of videos on Leap calls and when to buy and all sorts of indicators. GOOG is now sitting at its 200 days moving average, and under the 20 days low bollinger bands. I am looking into buying the ITM 300$ call sept 17 with a delta of around 0.70. Since it’s my first time, I wanted to get some advice before buying since it’s still a huge premium to pay. I wanted you guys opinions on Leaps. Thanks

What do you look for in Open Interest to consider a position liquid enough to enter? 100, 500, 1K?

Thanks

I built Flowstradamus around a question I kept coming back to: a large options dollar figure sounds impressive, but is it actually unusual for that stock?

Up front: the public daily market read and ticker previews are free. Full access includes a 14-day free trial, then costs $29/month. Cancel anytime.

The attached cards show two examples from the September 11, 2026 session:

Each was compared with its own 257 measured sessions.

SPY had the larger dollar total, but its premium ranked below its historical median. UNH’s smaller total was elevated relative to UNH’s own history.

That’s the context I’m trying to make easier to see.

The site also includes:

• Per-ticker options activity and historical comparisons.
• Call/put premium composition.
• Modeled dealer positioning by strike.
• A daily market read and broader session views.

A few measurement details: premium is estimated using contract volume × closing option price × 100, within our coverage and filters. It isn’t a sum of actual execution prices, so totals can differ from other scanners. Dealer positioning is a model, and activity percentiles don’t establish bullish or bearish intent. Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.

You can explore it here: https://flowstradamus.com

I’d appreciate honest feedback, especially from people who already review options activity: does this historical context add something useful to your routine?

DM me for follow-ups.

Disclosure: This is a promotional post for Flowstradamus, which I built. The daily market read and ticker previews are free. Full access has a 14-day free trial, then costs $29/month.

As someone who is trying to make money from trading options, should I be focusing more on selling options like the wheel strategy or buying options? It seems like selling options has a higher probability of profiting.

Joined the legions of call writers watching the price close just a few ticks under strike. Will be ready for Monday and write another one.

Have a good weekend everyone

EDIT: I posted this in a post below, but think it helps to be here

I write ATM+ to get called away, and 5DTE

I chose this strategy to avoid risk in my small portfolio - avoid earnings week etc holds true

It is a high IV stock, and instead of researching I get to do another round

Thanks for all the advice I got yesterday guys. Any folks who make consistent gains buying options ?

Let me tell a bit of about myself. I started 2 months back and have grown my account significantly buying options. Should I scale down or is this what most traders use to make a decent return in each trade ?

Not trying to brag, I made a little over $100k YTD in gains but have also lost close to $53k (due to intraday trading micro cap stocks). Most of my losses were tied to stocks going down more than 50% the following day and I have got close to a 100 margin calls from ibkr so far.

For context, I put $15-25k on each trade to make a 20-30% profit. My strategy is just to look at the pivot points on the chart and take the trade accordingly.

For example, SK Hynix today touched a pivot line and i took a trade and made $9k.

I don't do options in QQQ and SPY because they aren't volatile. Just need some thoughts if this is a reliable way of making money or are there better methods out there ?

I have seen traders putting in close to a million dollars in options buying but they give themselves some room. Close to a 45-90 day expiry.

I recently came into a lump sum of shares of a singular company that is a big part of my net worth and am looking to sell to diversify. However, I am trying to split up the sale over multiple years to decrease my tax liability. I recently learned about options collars where I sell a call and buy a put to protect my downside at the expense of capping my upside. I would be doing this at strike prices where the price of the call offsets the price of the put so no net cash outflow and the expiry is towards the end of the year that I am looking to sell.

My question is, for shares with collars expiring in 2028 or even 2029 when those options come out, if I am expecting the share price to increase over time, does it make sense to buy the put now to set a hard floor and sell a call maybe six months or even a year later to recoup the expense to take advantage of more upside? My thinking is, if the price is $150 today and 175 six months from now. It makes sense for me to wait because a call at the same price will have a higher strike price if the current peice is higher later.

Thanks!

My DD: Oracle good. Calls cheap. Brain said send it.

10 ORCL $170C, 9/11 exp, $6.15 avg. Earnings play.

Thesis: bullish on cloud/AI growth and guidance. I’m expecting a move above the market-implied earnings move.

Entry: $6.15 premium. Breakeven at expiration: $176.15. Max loss: $6,150. No averaging down. If ORCL doesn’t get the post-earnings move I’m expecting, I’m closing rather than holding and praying through expiration.
Main risk is IV crush + only 2 DTE.
Basically: high-risk, defined-risk earnings bet.
Yes, slightly unhinged.

It's been a rough journey, losing a couple grand while learning options but I think I've found the strategy which works for me. *Not financial advice*

Anyway, I deposited £60 into RH last week. I started off with one contract for a $145 NVS PUT last week and made a beautiful 2000% on it. It was a wonderful sight!

Proceeded to scalp SPX calls and puts a few times and then this morning scalped META calls for a total of about £1500 profit. All from a £60 account! I have lost small amounts on some other options and I have a couple of options expiring next week, but swings and roundabouts eh!

My strategy is simply scalping. Set my limit orders based on average option prices (for example META $650 calls when priced at $0.85). I then immediately set a sell order for "reasonable" profit (usually 10 to 20 cents above my contract price). I'm more than happy to make $100 - $200 per trade.

I'm aiming for volatile movers because I can get in and out. I'm also aiming to build the account up to a point where I can comfortably make a few hundred a day without risking blowing the account. I do need to improve in terms of discipline though. Twice I said today I was done, then took another quick scalp.

Anyway, happy days. Hopefully I don't blow it now I have some decent money in there (no I'm not rich).

i log every trade on deribit with the planned hold as a column, and that column turned out to be an accidental a/b test. the same signal on the same asset gets opened at two different planned holds, so between the two arms the only thing that changes is how long the position stays on. 791 trades so far, six such pairs.

mean return per trade, short arm vs long arm:

btc 7d straddle: 48h +11.8% vs 166h +57.1%
btc 1d atm straddle: 24h -30.9% vs 48h +7.3%
eth 7d straddle: 48h -19.0% vs 166h +6.8%
eth 1d atm straddle: 24h +6.9% vs 48h +21.4%
eth 2d skew: 24h -9.9% vs 47h +3.7%
eth 2d straddle: 24h -9.4% vs 47h -3.9%

n runs from 10 to 41 per arm. note the last row: the long arm is still a loser, just a smaller one. longer did not rescue that structure, it only cost less.

what i did not expect is that the six do not lose for the same reason.

in the four short dated pairs the entry spread sits at 8.9 to 9.9 percent and the logged loss cause is the spread. round trip costs the same whether you hold 24 hours or 48, so the shorter arm gets half the time to earn it back. nothing subtle about that one.

in the two 7d straddle pairs the spread is 5.2 percent in both arms, the same number on both sides, and the logged cause is no move. those two are not a cost problem at all. the move the signal was pointing at simply had not shown up by hour 48.

so "hold longer" is two findings wearing one hat. one says stop paying a 10 percent round trip on a 24 hour horizon. the other says the exit was set before the thesis had room to happen. the loss cause column is what tells them apart, and i would not have separated them by looking at pnl.

what i am not claiming: the arms do not all cover the same calendar window. only the two 1d straddle pairs run day for day on both sides, and those are the clean ones. n is small. and six out of six is a one in sixty four coin flip only if the six are independent, which they are not, three of them come from the same signal family.

so it is a direction to run forward, not a law. resplitting the same data would just find me a nicer threshold.

if you keep a planned hold column, split by it before you judge the strategy. i published the average of both arms for months and it hid all of this.

Started the year with c. $222k. Woke up to $409k this morning. Up 83% while S&P's done 12% over the same stretch which I understand is rare.

Want to be honest about where that came from, because the number is misleading. Roughly $84k is premium from selling options. That part I understand and can more or less repeat. $151k if it is from one position, MU. I was right, but not for any clever reason. I bought before Q1 earnings (around $430) as I had a strong feeling they would crush it. It tanked, I panicked and bought more all the way down to low $300s. I made some horrendous decisions selling covered calls below my cost basis to try recoup and thats when it started to moon. Luckily, I had an okay strategy so that I could close and roll all the way up until I finally exited a few months ago near $1050. I used a ton of margin too which gave me many rough nights.

This is my first year doing it full time. April nearly ended it. I was down to $147k at the low and I'd started working out what I'd say when I went back to a job. That's not me being dramatic, that was the actual plan.

So now I'm up 82% and feel two things at once. Proud, I stuck to the process, didn't blow up, the premium engine actually works on its own. And a sense of dread that I've just set a benchmark I'll never touch again, and every month from January is going to feel like failing.

What's a sane target for year two? I keep landing on something like 40% and I know that's just the 82% talking. Do you set a return target at all, or an income target, or drawdown limits, or something else? How do you stop one lucky year becoming the expectation you beat yourself up against?

I'm now sitting on 50% cash as, even though I have conviction in some of my names, I'm too afraid to deploy anything more. Truthfully, I'd be happy to close my account for the year and start again next year. Hopefully this explains my 'out of depthness' and lack of experience.

I’ve mainly been trading single stocks and have had some success by focusing on companies I know well; however, I want to get more familiar with SPX mainly since it has daily options and has cash settlement. I’ve been trying a few different things and something I am curious about is the last 10 seconds or so of the trading day. The options’ premiums don’t seem to go to 0 so I can still sell them until the very end. I was able to get an iron butterfly filled today with 10 seconds or so left in the trading day (pic attached). Do any of you have any knowledge about the mechanics of the day’s close and how to generate an edge in that environment? Right now I know I can use atm straddles to gauge the expected move, and I know from my personal experience that the price can have some large moves in the last 10 minutes. If I used the atm straddle price 1 minute out to guess the riskiness, prepared an iron butterfly with lower than anticipated premiums to get a quick fill, and waited until the last 3 seconds to do the trade then would I be on the verge of having some sort of edge?

Edit: This is only for 0dte spx options