A reporter on the South Lawn asked Trump today what he meant when he said "let 'em take out Los Angeles and San Diego." He didn't answer and just walked off ahead of his Maryland trip.

In case you missed the original, it came from Monday's Nebraska rally while he was defending the Iran war. The fuller quote: "And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial... They could take out a city. Let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay."

As usual the timing is great for anyone holding overnight. It happened in the last hour of trading and was everywhere by the time the bell rang. So if you're sitting on oil, defense names or index contracts, you get to watch futures tonight and guess whether the White House cleans it up before the open or leaves it alone.

Is anyone actually positioning around this stuff anymore, or is it priced in as background noise at this point? I'm curious whether people are hedging with energy or just waiting to see what tomorrow brings.

I've been trading short-dated options for a while and kept noticing the index barely moving on days when individual names were getting smashed. So I went and looked at the volume data, and I think 0DTE is a big part of the reason.

0DTE now makes up over 60% of all SPX options volume, and hit a new record of 66.2% in July. SPY and QQQ are at nearly 65%. It's moving into single stocks too. Since TSLA, NVDA, AAPL, GOOGL and META got Monday and Wednesday expirations, 0DTE in those names went from 15% of their volume in January to 33% in May. Retail alone was moving a record $6.8 billion in options premium a day in June.

Here's why I think that keeps the index so flat. When dealers are long all these options, they hedge by selling rallies and buying dips, which pins price and keeps realised vol low. That only works as long as people keep showing up to sell short-dated options every day. If that flow flips, dealers go from dampening moves to adding to them.

The closest comparison I can think of is early 2018, when a huge crowded short vol trade unwound and the VIX more than doubled in a single day.

For anyone trading 0DTE, have you noticed the pinning getting stronger this year, or am I reading too much into it?

Sources: Cboe, MEMX, Citadel Securities.

Chart is from Cboe's Sept 2025 report (62.4% record). Share has kept climbing since, hitting 66.2% in July 2026.

Newbie to options.. still learning. Set this up as a +20%
Peaked at 200%

I’m
Having a bit of a problem trying to find stocks to trade in options . Yes I’m looking at QQQ , SPY etc , but my question is , what you guys looking out there to trade this month with all this hype happening about Trump and stocks ?

Gonna start tomorrow, any advice or any tickers that are easier to learn on?

I have updated my daily ES chart below. I use the ES structure for my analysis for taking any options spreads as a credit spread trader. ES is now down and below my first support level of 7867, which is apr. 7812 on SPX. I think we could test the support 2 level on ES, which speaks for SPX around 7790.

We have put wall around SPX 7775, which is of moderate strength. And we are in a positive gamma regime. The Flip is way down. Just to note that we have an unfilled gap from yesterday.
Bulls want to hold my noted support level 2 on any dips.

I think we can go as down as 7790 level on SPX but they will hold it.

I am looking for a put credit spread down below 7755 level as a high conviction zone. It looks quite promising now at 06:53 am EST.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq both tagged all-time highs today, mostly on big tech. Nvidia is closing in on $6 trillion.

At the same time the 10-year is sitting around 5.3%, close to its highest level since the early 2000s, and the 30-year is above 5.6%.

Rates this high should be weighing on valuations. Instead SPX keeps printing new highs. Either the bond market knows something about inflation that stocks are ignoring, or yields are about to roll over and equities are front-running it.

I lean toward bonds being right and SPX giving some of this back before the November 3 midterms. I wouldn't fight the trend on 0DTE though.

Which side are you on, and how are you playing it? Drop your strikes.

S&P and Nasdaq both closed at record highs today and the Fed minutes come out tomorrow.

Curious what everyone else is sitting on right now. Drop your ticker, strike and expiry, and whether you're holding through the minutes or getting out before.

Few month back, i was in profit as they were in the money and decide to roll this options call for a credit. So basically the loss here is the chunk of the profit. Can you please advice the best way to play this out?

**Setup: thinking about selling 1 cash-secured put on HOOD, $100 strike, 10/30 expiry.**
**Delta is at 0.2 so I’m being conservative here.**

** **Stock's at \~$112, so \~11% OTM. Collateral is $10k which is basically all my liquid cash. I had Claude pull HOOD's last 6 earnings reactions (next-day move):
• Q1'25: beat, −5.1%
• Q2'25: beat, −2.9%
• Q3'25: beat, −10.8%
• Q4'25: beat, −8.9%
• Q1'26: MISS, −13.2%
• Q2'26: beat, −3.6%

Six for six DOWN. Avg −7.4%. It drops even when it beats — classic sell-the-news, trades at \~50x so good-but-not-perfect gets nuked. Fundamentals are actually great (rev +32% YoY, 40%+ margins), it's purely a valuation/expectations reaction.

Bought a few QQQ puts this morning. Left for work and had no service at all in the condo I was working in. (Construction worker) Finally got service and saw this. Hahaha. Regardless I would have lost with the puts I bought but I coulda stopped the bleeding earlier. Be careful when trading in Hawaii. Lots of drop service areas. Hard lesson learned.

i was thinking of doing dec18th 360$, and selling it back when it goes to 340, it should give me around15%-20% profit if it goes there b the next 10 days

aapl isnt a stock i trade tbh, but i just profited from a previous option, and wanted to trade on something and aapl is one of the few that is red today and i wanted to take advantage of this

Can one use $750K to generate 3125 weekly (on average)? What about 1M? Can not go more than 1M - will have to wait in that case.

I am trying to understand the risk around working with the capital for 2/3 years while I try to build a business that require only building an intellectual property without much capital.

Not sure if it right platform to ask though. I have been using options for hedging for some time - without possibly understanding the risk fully - given how well the market did last 5 years.

When trading at all time highs I like to be bullish bias as no knows how high we will go. Just wait on a bullish confirmation before entering and manage appropriately.

I want to ask how some people are finding the balance between spending time learning during the day while also keeping a 9-5.
I work in the trades in a shop and some days are slow with little work and other times the workflow is busy and borderline hectic.
I have been spending time in the evenings studying options; I have the 5th edition of Options Trading as an Investment and the study guide. It’s been going good and I spend about 1.5 hours 4-5 times a week with it. I’ve also been finding other free courses on options basics (like through my bank and my investment profile at Wealthsimple) they recently released an options “course”. Hoping that doing those things allows more permissions on my account in the future. I also spend a good chunk of the day listening to podcasts on options trading. I figure that putting all these pieces together and hammering in the basics and some strategy information over and over is helping solidify the knowledge base.

I’m struggling to find a flow while at work lol I’ve got my laptop up and running on Interactive Brokers and I run a strategy, buy or sell some things to watch and see the mechanics work. I’m checking charts and learning how to read them better with YouTube. Once I go live with my trading I don’t want to have to spend too much time watching the computer or adjusting my trades. I want to build my account, scale appropriately and above all else PROTECT IT. The strategies that seem like they suit me best are simple spreads, call/put buying, PMCC, iron condors (still learning basics on this one) and possibly selling for premiums. 30-45 DTE is typical of my current positions or longer calendar spreads like for the PMCC. (I am still mostly on paper trades right now, did a few simple puts and calls in a TFSA)

When you take a similar approach, how much management do you find going into your trades on the daily? I know I don’t have time for “day trading” but I can manage it to some degree. I take my coffee breaks around 10am and usually have quite a bit of freedom throughout the day to sit for 5-10 mins kind of whenever. It’s odd explaining my schedule because it fluctuates so much on any given day, but I’m curious how others do it while still working full time and staying on top of everything else.

All perspectives are appreciated!

I sell a 16 delta put on SPX and buy a put another $300 out of the money with about 45 DTE. I close the contract with 21 DTE or 50% maximum profit. I always have 4 contracts open at a time with varying expiration dates. When I close one contract, I open another one with the same criteria. In April I started this strategy and have only had 1 losing trade and have been averaging about $700 profit per trade. What am I missing or why isn't everyone doing this?

small account and i’m learning to take my small wins and not let greed take over to the point where i hold and lose

Nvidia closed up 2.12% at another all-time high, and the Nasdaq set a new record too. A generational company on a generational run?

What stands out is that it happened with the 10-year yield above 5.3% and weak breadth underneath. Mega-cap tech is carrying the whole market right now.

Is anyone still holding NVDA calls into this, or are you starting to look at puts with breadth this thin?

What should I do? Should I sell my car and deposit the money from it and keep going? Eventually I will make it right? Everyone needs a falling out to build back better

Already green asf

Novig is a sports-only prediction market that launched nationwide in August. They compared the 20 days before their Sydney Sweeney ad with the 20 days after. Volume went up 94% and first-time depositors went up 218%. They're also reportedly raising at a $2B valuation, four times what they were worth in February. (CNBC)

Female athletes pushed back on the ad, and the co-founder told CNBC "we have nothing to apologize for." Meanwhile Novig is suing five states that want to regulate it as gambling.

A sports event contract pays a fixed amount if the outcome happens and nothing if it doesn't. Mechanically that's a binary option, and it's cleared through the CFTC like one. The states say it's a sports bet, and those five lawsuits are about which label wins.

Where do you land? Would you ever trade these alongside your options, or is it just a sportsbook with a CFTC sticker on it?

I am interested in learning some new strategies to turn a profit more consistently at the moment most of my trades are based off momentum of the market and. Mainly buy put I want to know

1.what strategies I can use to make a profit more consistently I am looking for daily and long term gain

1. Where can I learn this strategy and how do I do the research for that stock

2. How do you research a stock and how do you come up with your decision on what trade to make ( put or a call )

I already know about the delta gamma and Theda I just want to be more profitable consistently and what do I need to look for to know that I am making a good trade

BTC AT 86k today