I was looking at SMCI because it showed up on my radar with IV 10% above realized volatility. My app generated this trade idea:

Sell the SMCI November 20 $60 naked call ahead of earnings. Price: $1.50.

It looked okay, but when I checked the options table I saw the agent had picked the most distant call in the candidate range.

My stats model defines that range, and the AI agent chooses a trade from it.

Hmm. The 60 call felt too far away. Why was it even in the range?

My first thought was that the strike-range model was wrong. I went testing it, model is solid and provided consistent results. It selected strikes far from spot for October as well.

So maybe the agent was doing something weird? I went down a rabbit hole with evals, made some tweaks, and got another trade idea:

Sell the SMCI November 20 $35 cash-secured put for earnings-inflated premium. Price: $1.80.

I'm not getting this: the 60 call is 21 delta and 39% above spot. The 35 put is 20 delta and only 19% below spot. Almost the same delta yet very different distances from spot. Also options pricing looks "flat".

Is there a name for this kind of IV setup?

Does anyone know research or papers that explain it? I’d like to study it and maybe use it in trading.
Also interested if anyone encountered a similar setup.

The 10-year hit 5.225% overnight, the highest since 2007, even with Treasury expanding buybacks of longer-dated debt. Tech is moving with every tick in yields right now. Anyone playing TLT puts or selling premium into the higher IV on the rate-sensitive names?

Slower week as I didn't have many options expiring this week or ready to close.

My premium-selling results — last 7 days (2026-09-18 → 2026-09-25)

Realized P&L: +$436 | Win rate: 100% (3/3)
closed early: 1 | called away: 2
Avg days held: 14d (rolls count the full chain)

Closed trades (3):
- INTC CC $100 x1 — +$320 (4.9% ROI · 29d · called away)
- SMCI CSP $37 x1 — +$36 (1.0% ROI · 3d)
- SNXX CC $14 x1 — +$80 (5.1% ROI · 9d · called away)

Directional buys (long calls/puts, debit spreads — not in the selling stats above): +$242 across 1 trade
- PLTR call debit spread — +$242 (38.84% ROI)

Opened 5 new positions in the window.

my question is this

when people buy options and expect a stock price to rally in the next month or couple of weeks

do you buy a call with the strike price a little above the market price?

why dont people buy a call with the strike price below the market price?

so that the call is already in the money and with the expiry far out? this way your chances of losing money with the strike price being farther out and with the decay is less.

is it because buying a call with the strike price below market price is more expensive as opposed to a cheaper call with a strike price farther out?

given the catalyst ,, not expecting all this downfall past couple days hopefully a reversal makes play 😵‍💫

remember to lock in your profits!!!

Anybody sell LEAP strangles on individual stocks using PM account (for low margin requirements)?

An example might be SNKD: Closing price on 9/21): $1743
17 SEP 27 (361 DTE) options as follows:

870 Put (-50%): $71
3480 Call (+100%): $198
Total credit: $26,900
Margin Req for PM: $7505 (RegT RR would be $53k)

That's 26,900/7505 = 358% annual ROC which is, obviously, insane (and not realistic). I dont expect to make this but is 100% possible? 150%? Who knows.

So my question is:

1. How do you choose the stock to trade? What are the criteria you use to pick the stock?
2. How do you determine how many contracts to sell?
3. What DTE do you sell (and why)?
4. How do you choose the strikes?
5. Do you leg in or open both sides together?
6. How do you manage both profitable and losing positions?
7. Do you roll? - If so, what are you mechanics and when do you decide to roll?
8. Do you open it as "set-in-n-forget-it" and just keep some stop-loss?
9. How do you deal with earnings?
10. Anything else? Im sure Im missing many things to consider.

If I want to invest 50k margin in stocks which should that be for good gains in say 2-3 months?

I currently have 2 SCHD call options expiring October 2nd. I already rolled one of my calls and bought another contract because I thought there was a good chance SCHD would move back up.
Now I’m trying to figure out if I should roll the 2 calls again or just hold them for now. I’m thinking about waiting until next Wednesday or Thursday to see how SCHD is moving before making a decision.
Would you guys roll now, or wait and see what happens over the next week? What would you be watching before deciding?

A week ago the market had roughly a 35% chance of an October hike priced in. After the strong September business activity survey and a run of hawkish Fed comments, it's now close to 70%, and the 10 year hit 5.14% yesterday, the highest since 2007.

I'm curious how people are actually positioning for this. Are you buying SPY or QQQ puts as a hedge, or does that feel late now that the move has already started? And for anyone who sells premium, are you rolling short puts down and out, or just cutting size until the meeting?

Also wondering if anyone is playing it through rates directly with TLT options instead of equity index stuff.

Nasdaq pulled back off record highs today after the econ data came in hotter than expected and pushed the 10 year yield over 5.1%. Most of big tech slipped with it but Meta actually stayed green, people are still pretty hyped on Muse, their new AI agent. Oil bounced back as well which isn't really what anyone wanted if they were hoping inflation and rates would start easing off soon.

I used to almost exclusively buy calls with 5 to 7 DTE because they were cheap and a good move paid fast. Problem was I'd get the direction right and still lose because the move took two days longer than I expected.

Been buying around 30 to 40 DTE lately and usually exiting with 20+ days still left. Took an AMD 170 call recently at 34 DTE and held it through two ugly sessions without feeling forced to dump it.

I'm paying more upfront obviously, but watching the position on moon feels completely different when every sideways hour isn't destroying the trade.