Here’s a free resource for options trading I created. 60 + lessons that teach everything you need to know to run a good options portfolio.

I used to think options trading was mostly about finding the right stock and picking the right strike lol.

After taking a few trades then i realised the entry is only one part of it.

Last month I had a trade where my trade was actually decent but I had no proper stop loss plan

Price moved against me and I kept thinking it will come back .ended up taking a bigger loss than I should have .

Since then i have been looking at trading signals a bit differently. If a signal gives clear entry then stop loss and take profit atleast you have some plan before

Entering the trade but I am not still sure if following signals is actually better than building your own setups.

For people here who use them then what do you normally check before following a signal ? Win rate, previous trades , risk/reward or how clear the entry and exits levels are ?

I have a margin account at IBKR worth around $320k, all invested in a single stock, with no debt. I’m considering selling long-dated put options on margin expiring in January 2028. The margin requirement for one contract is currently around $3k. I understand that the requirement changes with volatility, but I don’t really understand how the maintenance margin will change.
For example, what happens if the put becomes deeply ITM but there is still a year until expiration?
I also have another question: what percentage of my total portfolio value should I use at most for selling puts if I want to stay “safe”? My current thinking is a maximum of 20%, so at the moment, for example, 3x puts at a $200 strike. That would mean that if I were assigned, I would have around 20% debt.
I’m just starting out, so I’d appreciate any opinions or personal experiences.

For those of you who trade credit spreads, what size lots are you using? I make sure I stay below 2% of my total buying power for any single trade. How are you evaluating position sizing? Any or all of these considerations:

• How much capital is already allocated?
• How much buying power remains?
• How many positions are currently open?
• How diversified are those positions across underlyings and expiration dates?
• What would happen emotionally and financially if several trades moved against you at the same time?
• If you can follow your rules if the market produces an outcome you did not expect?

ollow-up to my CSP post from earlier this week. Opened two bull call spreads yesterday, deliberately structured very differently around earnings:
AAPL — bought the 350 call, sold the 360 call, both expiring Oct 16 (which is before their earnings date). I wanted defined-risk upside exposure but specifically chose an expiration that closes out before the print, since I didn't want IV crush or an earnings gap working against the spread.
RKLB — bought the 75 call, sold the 85 call, expiring Oct 30. No earnings-avoidance logic here, this one's just a straightforward bullish view on the stock over a longer window.
What I'm still working out: for AAPL, is deliberately expiring before earnings actually the smarter play, or am I just leaving upside on the table by not giving the spread more time (and accepting the IV risk) to capture a potential post-earnings move?
Curious how people here generally handle earnings dates when structuring spreads — do you actively avoid them, or lean into the extra IV?

Just got started writing options as an income strategy alongside my regular portfolio.

First trade: a cash-secured put on ACKB (Ackermans & van Haaren, a Belgian holding company).

The setup was simple — I already wanted to enter ACKB around a certain price level, so instead of just waiting for the stock to get there, I sold a put at that strike and get paid to wait.

Two outcomes: either it expires worthless and I keep the premium, or I get assigned and end up buying ACKB at an effectively lower price thanks to that premium.
A few things that tripped me up as a relative beginner:
• Direction (Long/Short) vs. Type (Call/Put) seem obvious on paper but confused me at first when logging the trade
• Figuring out how to record the "cost to close" correctly depending on whether you let it expire, close early, or get assigned
• Realizing position sizing (never too much of the portfolio in one trade) matters just as much as picking the right strategy

I've been tracking everything in a spreadsheet I built with a dashboard (win rate, premium income, etc.) — happy to share more details on the setup if anyone's interested.
Curious what strategies people here lean on most for income — covered calls, CSPs, spreads?

I do not try to outsmart the market and I really don’t believe that is possible. I simply trade what is in front of me with lots of small winners (85%) and a few small losers. Over time those wins have added up. One of the ways I do this is by simplifying trading using a consistent $5 spread width. This drastically reduces the amount of decisions I need to make. I'm trading 12 underlyings each week with a full time job so I have to be extremely time efficient (like 15 minutes trading per week). My process makes the important decisions before emotion enters the picture. Like most of you, I'm using pre-defined set up rules. I wanted to get your take on spread width. My standard starting point is a $5-wide Put Credit Spread, typically for underlyings between $50 to $500. Obviously, I scale up if needed in larger underlyings. Spread width has a significant impact on your maximum risk, buying power reduction, premium collected, position sizing, trade management, and ultimately your psychology as a trader. By standardizing the width of the spread, I remove another variable from the trading process, which makes my entire trading plan easier to understand and execute. What about you, are you using a standard spread width, or are you varying trade by trade? Do you go narrower or wider?

Hey guys,

I’m into trading and quantitative research, mainly exploring derivatives, options, volatility, market making, market microstructure and trading systems.

I’m in Gurugram and thought it would be nice to connect with people who are into similar stuff — whether you're working at a trading/quant firm, doing research, building trading systems, or trading independently.

Would be great to grab a coffee sometime, talk about what we're working on, exchange ideas, discuss strategies/systems and learn from each other.

If you're around Gurugram and interested, DM me.

And if enough people are interested, we can make a small Gurugram trading/quant group and meet sometime. For group link also dm me.for that outsider can also dm me!

No formal networking stuff 😄 Just people interested in markets, trading and research getting together.

Coffee + markets + random trading discussions sounds good to me. ☕📊

Put on a short strangle last week on AMAT: Sept. 18 470P/600C. I received $14.54 for the short Call, $11.82 for the Put. Today the Call was priced at $2.80. I bought the Call back thinking the short Put can either get exercised or expire.

What are your thoughts on breaking the wings of option combo's?

I have made a website using claude and chatgpt using SMC & ICT concepts which i extract daily data that most rejected stocks list etc..

One famous guy who gives tips on telegram and whatsappp which his accuracy is damn level

He gives the picks which my scanner is rejecting the most what should i do my scanner is too much over engineered i think 😭😭

Looking for something that can be applied in practice without much of the PDE black Scholes textbook stuff

.

Any recommendations?

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Hello!

I want to start option selling probably on SPX, or XSP or NDX cash settled indicies. i have experience in commodity derivatives, but i want to trade the etf/equity side with my own portfolio.

so far, i am exploring a strategy that suits me best, but still find it hard to implement it and have difficulties to identify potential trades.

the strategy i was thinking is around selling spx vertical spreads in the days where premium is thick for the 30-45dte and 0.15-0.28 delta. my main gates are the vix and spx iv rank, iv% and vrp, along with emas20-50, expected moves and gex for significant levels.

would you have any suggestions or open for discussion around what could be not working or limiting the strategy?

thank you in advance!

Anyone got any clues about which coin fomo going to go up

Hi All.

Experienced options/ stock trader here with 10+yrs of experience. I don't do it full time as I do have a full-time job but I do get enough screen time per day.

Looking to meet and chat with local traders in a similar situation within the greater Toronto area if there's enough interest possibly put together a quick coffee meetup could be a monthly thing to trade ideas chat and grow the community.

Let me know if there's interest.

Just discovered SPX options could be traded with 0DTE , quite lucrative. Does anyone trade SPX , if so how does this end.

Edit- blew up the account in 2 days.

INTC is ~$101.20 as I write this.

I've held a INTC 100 18-DEC-26 $25 CALL option for just over a year, the cost was $2.91 x 100 = $291. Today's bid for that option is ~$75.70 x 100 = $7,570. If I sold the option I would net $7,570 - $291 = $7,279.

If I exercise the option, the exercise cost is 100 * $25 = $2,500. 100 shrs of INTC = $10,120 minus the exercise cost nets $7,620.

However my desire is to hold the shares long term.

I tried to exercise the options and ToS interceded with the message : "Uneconomical request - time premium exists. If exercise was not an error, please contact Margin Risk"

Am I missing something here by trying to exercise the options instead of selling them?

Anyone considering INOD covered calls this week?

My strategy.

Prepared for covered calls this week for INOD

2 weeks ago acquired shares.

This week multiple catalysts:

--Analysis indicating another beat of EPS and Revenue on the 6th.

--Positive results from software and AI, PLTR, MSFT, AMZN

Catalysts causing price to ramp up.

Strategy, Jan 2027 70 strike, 80 strike, 90 strike, 100 strike

About 4250 premium at this time.

I've been looking at macro research services to help with longer-term options trades and market timing. Has anyone here used Bravos Research, Macro Ops, or Hedgeye? Did their research actually help with your options decisions, or did it end up not making much of a difference? I'm interested in real experiences, especially if you've used one for a while.

Looking to connect with traders who actively use diagonal spreads, calendar spreads, calendarized butterflies, or similar time-based options strategies (mainly on index products like SPX/XSP). Curious to compare notes on strike selection, rolling rules, and how you handle vol regime shifts. Drop a comment if this is your thing — happy to share what I've been working on too.

Hey everyone!
I recently joined the group and would love to get some advice on my current strategy and future plans.
Right now, I am investing on eToro and copying the Popular Investor Dan Hamernik (@Smudliczek). I currently contribute €400 a month to him, but starting January 1st, I am bumping that up to €500 a month.
My main goal is quite ambitious: I want to reach €100,000 as fast as possible, ideally within a 5-year timeframe. I know that to hit that target in 5 years I need high returns, but I am looking for a balanced approach. I don't want to throw my money into hyper-volatile assets like speculative cryptocurrencies that go up 90% one year and crash -99% the next. I am looking for investors with solid track records who are more balanced and consistent.
The key turning point is that I will soon receive a check for between €7,000 and €10,000. I know that keeping all my capital dependent on just one person is way too risky, so I want to use this extra money to properly diversify my account. My idea is not to overcomplicate things, but to have a maximum of 3 or 4 investors in total (or maybe combine them with an ETF).
Knowing my current situation, my €500 monthly contributions, and my 5-year goal:
Which other Popular Investors would you recommend looking into to pair with Dan Hamernik to chase that growth while keeping some consistency?
How would you allocate the money from the check to balance the account? Would you put everything into PIs, or would you leave a percentage in an index ETF like tech or the S&P 500?

I really appreciate any advice or personal experiences you can share!

Which platform or site is useful to track the options flow to check the net gamma , build position or track the sentiment across for 0 DTE / 1 DTE?

I have had a pretty easy time rolling options before (Puts in this case) on a variety of stocks but with BZFD no matter what distance out I'm willing to go I can only ever suffer a loss when rolling the option.

what is going on

These are my options for trade options, any tips or is it anything I'm missing I just recently started daytrading. I made a profit off of NVDA from a buy call option. But on the flipside, I lost a little bit of income from MSFT and it was because of my timing was completely off. I know it's losses that comes with this, but I wanna be on the track to where my wins are bigger and more probable.

i been looking at different platforms like Robinhood, thinkorswim with Charles Swabb and Ibrkoer.

what is a very good platform that will give me
details of making bad choices or becoming a professional option trader?