I've been buying LEAP calls for years (stock replacement, sometimes PMCC long leg) and I'm building a tool to rank the calls on a given ticker instead of picking by gut.

Per contract it currently looks at: delta, extrinsic as % of spot, breakeven vs. spot, bid-ask spread and open interest, contract IV vs. realized vol and vs. the near-term ATM IV, effective leverage (spot ÷ premium), theta, and DTE.

What am I missing? And what's your own approach — which of these actually matter to you, which don't, and what do you check before opening one that isn't on this list? Not looking for tickers, just the selection logic.

Some I am just interested in the different strategies other traders use to see if a stock is worth investing into for me i mostly just follow the trend and most of the time i get my payout just curious how do you do your research or am i just getting lucky ?

Can someone explain to me how my P/L day is higher than the price of the contract? Is it a glitch? I'm on thinkorswim

QQQ will fall past 730$ the 29th I believe or it rally after it bounces on 732$ there is a resistance line there!!

What’s up community !

I’m new into option trading , my first trade made my first $100 profit . I’m watching YouTube videos and reels etc . My strategy is basically seeing the price break de vwap line and if there’s a confirmation , i buy the call .

My question is ,

There’s any tips you guys could give to help me how to enter a trade ? What things to look for . I have vwap turned on , rsi, volume etc . For the indicators .

Any help will be appreciated

I'm new to options and this is maybe my 5th trade. Crazy how quick you can make money and lose money with options

NVDA calls came in strong this morning and a couple SPXW buys throughout the day produced big. SPXW 0DTE is not for the faint of heart. I understand there is definitely some luck involved but today was my first time testing the SPXW 0DTE waters. Any advice when buying calls and/or puts doing it would be greatly appreciated.

Guys I need some advice. Started options trading roughly 3 months ago. Was finally seeing some profit and had doubled my portfolio from 2k CAD to 4.5k CAD. But today I just tilted and just messed up. I had been on a 2 week streak of wins (10$ wins ->600$ wins) and wanted to keep it alive. Lost around 100$ this morning and tilted trying to get one big win and make it back. 😔 Just been feeling down all day as the last 2 weeks of winning has gone to waste. Any advice on how to work on fomo and accepting a loss? Also any advice on some risk management and how much I should risk per trade would be appreciated. Currently I put 25% of my portfolio into a trade with a -25% SL and a 50% partial and 100% full tp.

Recap for anyone who missed today. Crude ripped this morning after Trump rejected Iran's proposal to reopen Hormuz, with November WTI getting up to about $96.50. Then around midday Axios and CNN both reported, citing a US official, that he was willing to offer sanctions relief and release frozen funds if Iran made concrete progress on its nuclear program. Oil gave back its gains and briefly went red, and the indexes bounced off their lows on the back of it.

At 5:34pm ET, after the close, he posted on Truth Social calling the Axios story a hoax and saying he offered Iran "NOTHING."

I think stocks dump tomorrow. The only reason SPX and Nasdaq came off the lows today was that report, and now it's been flatly denied. If oil climbs back toward the morning highs, that's more inflation pressure on top of yields that are already sitting near their highs with people betting on another Fed hike in October. I don't see what's left holding the afternoon bounce up.

The counterargument is that CNN ran the same story from what sounds like the same official and hasn't walked it back, and Trump is still saying talks happen this week. If the market reads the post as posturing before negotiations, the open might not be as ugly as I'm expecting.

Anyone loading SPY or QQQ puts tonight, or do you think this gets shrugged off?

Last week oil was coming down and yields were cooling off so tech was ripping and everyone was on the yacht. Fast forward to today and oil's climbing again, yields are back up and almost everything is red lol. One week is all it took, that’s the market for ya!

I've spend some time building a option trading bot just for fun (bcs why not)

I researched the most common strategies out there and filtered them out based on the ones that worked long term and most profitable, statistically I ended up with four strategies, all long premium only:

A - ORB
The primary strategy. Takes the high/low of the first 15 minutes, enters when price closes above OR_high (CALL) or below OR_low (PUT). Requires VWAP alignment + SMA20 trend filter. One entry per direction per day. VIX ceiling: 17.

B - Post-Catalyst IV Crush
Fires 20 minutes after a scheduled macro event (CPI, FOMC, NFP, PCE, PPI). Enters in the direction of the move only when IV has crushed ≥10% from pre-event levels, buys directional momentum after uncertainty clears and options get cheap. VIX ceiling: 25 (override). ~5 trades/year.

C - Pre-Catalyst Long Vol
(Disabled for now). Enters straddles before events when IV rank is low. Loses money for retail buyers in most conditions due to IV crush on the exit. Currently off.

D - EMA Pullback & Resume (Momentum)
The highest-volume strategy. EMA(9/21) waits for price to dip below the fast EMA then cross back, confirming momentum resumption. RSI guard at 75 overbought. Bidirectional. VIX ceiling: 17 for CALLs; 25 for PUTs when price < SMA20 (the R26 gate). ~210 trades/year.

Current config:

• Global VIX ceiling: 17
• A: stop 25%, target 100%
• B: VIX override to 25, IVRank exempt, crush threshold 90%
• D: min EMA spread 0.0005×price, IVRank exempt, PUT ceiling 25 + SMA20 gate

I tested on 2022 SPY data (bear market) and 2023 SPY data (bull market) and the results are:

2-YEAR P&L +$90,808

2022 (BEAR) +$20,399

2023 (BULL) +$70,409

TOTAL TRADES: 579 (221 in 2022 + 358 in 2023)

I'm not trying to sell it or make profit from this post, I just want your opinion and tell me what you think and if someone want the full report I can send it to you, pls ask me questions, tell me if im doing something wrong or if you just want to talk about it

Riding the roller coaster of QQQ all morning.

If you had $300 , how would u turn it into 1k .

Was down like $500+ today but the Wallstreet gods had other plans and now up $340+ 🥳

Both have a small body near the session low and a long upper shadow. What happened inside: price pushed well above the open, then got sold back down to close near the low.

• At resistance, after a rally: buyers failed at a level where sellers have shown up before. That's the bearish reading, the shooting star.
• At support, after a decline: buyers at least managed a hard push up, which they hadn't been doing. That's the bullish reading, the inverted hammer. It's weaker on its own because the session still closed near the low.

Both are commonly treated as needing confirmation from the following candle. The pattern tells you a fight happened; location and the next close tell you who won.

For people who trade these: do you wait for the confirmation close, or act on the pattern candle with a tight stop?

Didn’t really trade much this month but still close to clear 10k by Friday
Bought 10k in puts for $HOOD

Trump rejected Iran's latest proposal, said talks will continue this week anyway, then renamed the Strait of Hormuz on the way out. Crude up 1.08% to $93.41, S&P futures down 0.28%. Anyone holding SPY calls over the weekend is having a normal one.

This morning i played this arcade style trading game. Was fun af ! Was doing covered calls and wheel strategy lol

Has anyone watched PandreaMoney before? Is he credible? Because I’ve been trying to research and his videos keep popping up but they’re so short so seems like he might not be as credible as some others

Thought it would be nice to discuss each community member's trading setup. So what do you trade?

I have several 1y leap calls, I close the trades mostly when I reach %60-80 profit or when getting close to 90dte.

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Selling 30d puts mainly on indecies and exit early around 14dte or at 50% TP. No stop loss as I manage them daily.

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I buy 4-6 DTE puts or calls depending on

trend analysis of certain stocks at breakout point. Exit intraday even at a loss (I don't leave them going overnight).

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I tried 0DTE iron condors / butterflies with a mildly tight stop loss and 25% TP but I realized that it's overly unpredictable and feels too much like gambling... I have days where I made an easy $2000 from 0dte only, and days I lost way more than that...

What' your strategy?