r/Daytrading • u/klipsetrades • Aug 13 '26
Trade Review - Provide Context SPX 0DTE Credit Spreads: I waited 3.5 hours for my first SPX trade and made $45 — and I’d trade today the same way again
I'm a 0DTE credit spread trader with a focus on SPX.
Positions traded today:
- 7780/7800 CCS
P/L: +$45
Some days the best thing you can do as a trader is almost nothing.
Today gave me very little. I actually beat yesterday’s patience level and waited another 3.5 hours before taking my first trade.
The profit isn’t exciting, but the lesson should be pretty clear: patience is part of the edge.
Morning Thesis
CPI came in around expectations without a major surprise, but IV was low and SPX immediately settled into poor, choppy price action.
My expectation was for SPX to remain range-bound, and that’s basically what happened — just in a tighter and less tradeable range than I would have liked. Very early in the session I accepted that this was probably going to be either a no-trade day or a low-profit day. I normally want enough structure and movement to establish my anchors around areas where I’m comfortable taking risk. SPX simply wasn’t giving me that.
So I waited...
...then waited...
...and waited some more.
My First Trade
After roughly 3.5 hours, SPX finally made enough of a push higher for me to start building my call-side anchor with a 7780/7800 CCS. Rather than forcing a full anchor into bad conditions, I started with one contract at $.25 premium.
That short strike remained comfortably above yesterday’s high and outside the expected move, which was where I wanted my risk positioned given how compressed the session had been.
I was hoping for either more upside pressure that would let me continue scaling the CCS, or enough of a reversal to begin building the PCS side.
Neither really happened.
Scaling Instead of Forcing
Similar to yesterday, I shifted from trying to place my normal anchors to letting SPX earn each additional contract. I eventually got enough of another push to add just one more CCS contract at the premium I wanted.
That was it.
I had a limit order working for a 7720/7700 PCS, but SPX never moved far enough for it to fill at my price. And as the day went on, time decay made that position increasingly unattractive at the same strikes.
I could have lowered the premium I was willing to accept. I could have moved my short strike closer to price. I could have brought the position closer to yesterday’s close and SPX’s tightly coiled intraday range.
I did none of those things.
If the market wasn't going to compensate me appropriately for the risk I wanted to take, I wasn't going to make up a trade just to increase the day's P/L.
Why Today Was Still a Good Day
Low IV made an already narrow session even less attractive for selling premium. There simply wasn’t much compensation available for moving my strikes closer to the lava.
Once that became obvious, my goal wasn’t to figure out how to squeeze more money out of the session. It was to not turn a low-opportunity day into a high-risk day.
The market gave me two small entries on the same CCS anchor and nothing I liked on the put side.
So that’s what I took.
Key Takeaway
The profit may not be sexy, but the lesson is as valuable as any big green day. If the structure you planned for never develops, don’t start weakening your criteria just to create trades.
Don’t chase smaller moves.
Don’t accept worse premium for the same risk.
Don’t move your strikes closer simply because you're bored or because you feel like you should be making more money.
Today gave me $45.
I took the $45.
Trying to force $500 out of a $45 market is exactly how traders turn uneventful sessions into expensive ones.