I have recently been studying the historical price movements of SPX and VIX during high volatility times - Dot Com Bubble, 2008 Subprime, COVID, etc.

I'm working on a credit-spread based strategy to profit off of what may be upcoming economic turmoil with the tariffs, general uncertainty, and the overvalued status of the Mag 7, illustrated by NVIDIA this last week.

With that being said, does anyone have a time-frame that they backtest and consider the most valuable? I have backtested to 1/3/2000 (first trading day of the year), but I question whether the stability between 2001-2008 and the much lower S&P 500 point total (~4000 points lower than it is now) makes backtesting in that period irrelevant.

However, on the opposite side of the coin, I question the value of backtesting years like 2020 and 2022, which had levels of volatility rarely (if ever) seen before, to my knowledge.

Would love to read some backtesting best practices for those of you that sell spreads based on TA and price direction!

They look good till the market crash late on Friday and now it’s heading the wrong way. Thoughts?

China tariffs will probably put dollar tree under, what am I not seeing here?

Just finished up a new project. A friend FollowerOfFlow built a python project pyrtdc that can pull in data from TOS RTD, bypassing excel.

I built a basic streamlit app tos-streamlit-dashboard on top of it to help get people started using it.

Need to have Thinkorswim and Windows for this setup to work. Or Windows vm?

We have other builders in the discord working on a Yahoo Finance / cboe data version for everyone else. There is a guide in there to help walk you through python install if you want help. Message me if you need a hand.

Someone already built a version that adds Delta Exposure.

Feedback and ideas always appreciated.

https://reddit.com/link/1ifcpwo/video/5rvdfr5mlkge1/player

Thinking of buying dual-sided LEAPS on a fairly stable ticker (AAPL, for example, knowing full well that NOTHING is safe in this current political climate) and selling 4-5 week options against both sides. Using the AAPL example, a Jan2027 $200 call would run around $6300, while a put equally spaced from current price (say, $270) would cost $4350 (for a total of $10,650). If I were to sell Mar7 '25 options spaced +-$10 from current, the premium collected would be (est) around $600-700. Rinse/repeat monthly and the premiums would theoretically offset the basis in 18 months or so. Theta decay on the underlying should be offset by the lengthy time to expiry, I would think, so it seems to be a fairly safe/stable way to generate monthly income at fairly low risk. I doubt it's as simple as I've laid it out, so was hoping someone had some meaningful insight on whether this could actually work or I should go back to the drawing board. TIA

I'm conscious this has been asked alot on this sub, and I've looked through the majority of answers, and I've found that the recommended brokers for UK options investing is IBRK and Tasyworks (tastytrades now). I attempted to created an account with the latter, and I was told its restricted and I have to use their partners IG Group. Has anyone created an account/ used IG groups? Would you recommend? I wanted tasty because i'm a beginner and won't be investing extortionate amounts.

Thanks.

Hi everyone. The recent DeepSeek ‘surprise’ highlights for me the sensitivity the market (ie mag7) are to news related triggers. Throw in trumps modeling operation and overall geopolitical tensions, and the fact we are at ATH suggest more downside probability than up. Are options the only way to structure exposure to limit downside risk but maximize upside potential?

so im just trying to get into options trading as a beginner, after diving into the idea of options ive made a strategy for myself and i hope for some advice from all of you.

as im trading from a small portfolio my strategy is as following:

a bull put spread on etfs to get premium, selling high iv options with -20delta otm puts & buy otm puts with lower strike price hoping for theta decay to do its thing and decay the main decision while the put bought acts as a hedge.

the put im selling should be over 30days to avoid getting assigned as i dont have the capital for assignment, thats basically it.

Any advice on my strategy? also id like to ask another question related to the strategy, if i get assigned on my sold put, can i exercise my bought put to avoid a margin call or to hedge the position?

I bought 1 Call $415 on TSLA on 1/23 with expiration of 1/31. I was betting it would have a spike on earning. As you saw TSLA dropped under 400 going into earning. On Friday though I went to sell my call when it was over $416.25 and I only had $334 of the value. Ended up losing. Is there a good way to determine what price at expiration would need to be to make money or break even? Also, if some experts see what went wrong would like to know. Is this all the result of time decay? Honestly thought the quick run up from the $388 would have turn good for me.

Ok spy with divs reinvest spy has a better chance of beating brk.b but options you wont get those divs so brk.b might be a beat choice for rolling leaps than spy ....lets debate it!

Anyone use the ATR to guage strike prices to sell cc at

So I recently seen a bunch of posts making quite a lot of money from options. Though when I check in my paper account it seems like there is almost no benefit to it. I’m not sure what setting would give such results, besides any luck in play. Theres a screenshot in the URL showing the low returns. Do you know what would give a higher return if successful?

For example the NVDA put option only has an upside of a couple 100. Does this mean per contract? Still I think it’s a very low amount compared to some of the posts you see with also just a couple of contracts. I’m just curious whether options can actually be profitable, which they seem, but I suppose only with different settings. Also the date 07-02 was the most close on, which would appear to have the highest IV.

Wrote some cc for Jan31 which ended ITM. OK. It is now Feb1, the cc are still listing on our account with major broker, shares still not assigned, and obviously cash for the assigned shares not received and we can't trnsact b/c have shares covering ITM CC.

Called broker yesterday, they are like: should be settled today (Jan31) by 5 or 6 or maybe later at night, possibly some time during the weekend, if not... probably Monday by noon, but if not... EOB or after hours Monday...

are all online brokers this slackjawed with settlement, did we just get unlucky with choice of platform, what gives while we're forced to sit patiently and wait for these people to draw a chall line from their elbow to their ass?

what is the normal wait time for something this basic?!

Hey yall, I’ve got an options strategy that we’re trying to fine tune, hoping there’s some more experienced people who would want to PM or hop on a call to see if there’s any common ground for a future collaboration depending on how helpful their 2 cents are? Thanks!

Hey fellas,

10$ ago I bought some amd leaps expiring in now roughly 290 days and payed 35.20 I already sold a cc against it to bring it down to 32.11 (trade already closed/booked) Current break even of the leaps sits around 137.70 ish

I can roll it to 410 days dte by paying 9$ premium for it and reduce the cost basis by 10.

Am I overseeing something or is that a 1$ gift and 120 days more to play out the bullish mind I have on amd?

Actually the roll would restore my 0.8 delta that has dropped from the previous call to 0.72 and reduced as said my break even from 137.7 to about 136.5

Good or bad idea? Completely new to option trading and have no idea what I’m doing. I believe the hysteria will calm down over the weekend and NVDA will bounce back, especially after they drop their 5070 cards and earnings report on the 25th. Cost is $825.

Would you do it?

I’m 15 and new to trading so sorry if this is a dumb question but suppose i bout 0dte call options on company z with a strike price of 415$ a share and it went up to 420$ during the day. if i tried to sell it an hour/ hour or two before market close will i be able to find a buyer or will it expire and i will be forced to excersize the contract. i’m aware of the inherent risks of 0dte options trading and the volatility but i wonder if this scenario is also a possibility, especially if im trading spy or other big etfs.

For next week's earnings Uber has high put call ratio vol=1.08 oi=1.22, does that really mean anything? Bearish signs?

I bought this today at around $122 after I heard of Jenson speaking with Trump. Still deciding on whether to just hold them for a lunch or not. Bought at $1.42 a strategy, currently worth $1.06, what would you all do?

Im moving with my brother in about 5 months, then I will need to be making around $2k monthly. I have a $20k account, and am not too bad with options but obviously I am new. I made around $9k this January but lost a lot of it with horrible risk management (will get better, just beginner mistakes thinking im invincible) due to the deepseek & nvidia fall. Any tips? I am looking into the wheel strategy. I made a lot today buying puts as im just figuring that out. Im really only comfortable with buying calls. Let me know just anything but saying im some dumb kid and to stop now lol. Stocks interest me a lot and study everyday

Hi,

I already made a similar post but since I explained myself poorly (and I now have more questions), I’m making a new one. Also, thanks to everyone who previously responded !

I have a homework project due in 24 hours where I need to construct a portfolio with 5 to 10 stocks. I'm in Europe, so I chose European stocks that are liquid and have a reasonable bid-ask spread. I need to implement a hedging strategy, and I can choose between gamma, beta, theta, or delta hedging. Initially, I wanted to do gamma hedging, but given my time constraints, I might stick to beta hedging instead.

I've struggled a lot because I didn’t fully understand what to do, and finding the right data has been difficult. I’m still convinced that most of the data I collected is unreliable, and I am not confident that I will achieve a good grade on this project. (I'm using Bloomberg by the way)

My main concern is the following : Am I doing the right thing?

The objective is to define a hedging strategy and backtest it on historical time series. We also need to use Monte Carlo techniques to simulate the hedging strategy with different portfolios. The frequency of strategy updates is up to us, and we need to investigate it.
In class, we used the Black-Scholes formula and worked only with call and put options.

What I have done so far and my questions

Data Collection

• I gathered stock prices and returns from Bloomberg (2014-2024)
• The main issue is the options data.
• I couldn’t find historical option prices or expired options, so I concluded that I need to compute them using the Black-Scholes formula. I was unsure how to determine the implied volatility. I was told that IVOL_MONEYNESS, while not entirely accurate, is sufficient for an academic project. Initially, I considered using historical volatility because IVOL_MONEYNESS and VOLATILITY_30D sometimes differ by more than 20%, which seemed weird. Apparently, I can replicate option prices using OVME, but I will check that tomorrow if I have time (since I don't have a terminal Bloomberg at home). For now, I assume my data is correct, as it is more efficient to move forward and correct it later if necessary.

My then second main problem is the strike price

Since I cannot find historical option and therefore strike, I assumed that Strike = PX_Last (with some small adjustments) because I am using ATM options. However, I feel like I am making up data. Between this and the volatility, I am unsure if my approach makes sense I'm kind of lost to be honest, i'm not really comfortable with hedging and I had to read a lot about it and ask a lot of questions to chatgpt to understand some small pieces but I can't be sure if I'm doing the right things

Thus ;

1. Even if it looks messy, is it acceptable for a university project? I feel like I spent too much time trying to find perfect data when perhaps the goal is simply to demonstrate a mathematically correct hedging strategy. (It's above all a Python project) The strike price issue is the part that concerns me the most.
2. My plan was:
3. First, adjust the hedging every quarter, then every month, and compare the results.Compute option prices with Black-Scholes every quarter, then every month, using PX_Last (with minor adjustments) as the strike and IVOL_MONEYNESS from Bloomberg for volatility.

Does this approach make sense? Am I missing something critical?

Thanks in advance (:

(sorry for the titles English is not my formal language and I asked chatgpt to improve my former text)

I sold a $135 CSP 30 days out for $200 at about a 0.25 delta, and now that CSP is worth 1700.

How screwed am I, and what do I do from here?

https://preview.redd.it/qcaittei3ege1.png?width=952&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa6335c1d361c2c8b305f9821489ead730ead727

Looks like it could be an interesting week...

If tariffs go into effect with steel and aluminum coming into the USA, there are winners and losers.

Losers include any company making large items full of metal, as in automotive makers producing cars in the USA. [TSLA, F, GM, TM etc]

Additionally, on the losing front Boeing [BA] Lockheed [LMT] would also have its costs increase.

Winners would include domestic steel producers such as Cleveland Cliffs [CLF] and Nucor [NUE].

Disclosure: percent of my account CLF = 1.11%, NUE = 0.93%

General inflation protection also do better than the average business.

https://preview.redd.it/4640m0mfaege1.jpg?width=618&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e76d2527c4b2ed623f0e85280f696d8acb59c22

What are the pitfalls of infinite rolling if my goal is to roll net even (or v small net debit) to keep driving towards a better strike price? What are some tax implications I should consider? When does it make sense to stop rolling

Hey all,

My last post got a few upvotes so I wanted to share another idea I have come across surrounding IPO lockups. I have not tested this idea so I wanted to hear your thoughts if anyone has tried something like this.

TL;DR: When insiders can finally sell their shares (often 90–180 days post-IPO), the sudden increase in available shares can push prices down short-term, so I am wondering if a short thesis can be profitable- to what degree is this efficiently priced in.

A lot of people try to trade the volatility coming from the hype surrounding an IPO, but I think there is a probably safer time to trade a newly listed company: Insiders have lockups on their stock that expire after 90-180 days. Once the lockup ends, those insiders can start selling. Naively you'd expect this to flood the market with additional supply, which can push the stock price down.

Here is a strategy I am thinking of implementing:

1. Filter Illiquid Offerings: If the volume is super low, it’s riskier. Spreads might be wide, and you could get crushed by low liquidity.
2. Watch for Headlines: Maybe companies might schedule big announcements to coincide with the lockup expiration—like positive PR or a new partnership. That can offset the selling pressure. So you definitely want to keep an eye out for unexpected news or hype.
3. Buy Puts or Spreads

Risk Factors

1. Low Liquidity: Some IPOs are tiny and have minimal daily volume. If you get in, you might move the price or face insane spreads.
2. Crowded Trades: If everyone is short, a short squeeze can happen, especially if the company drops a positive surprise. (see headlines point above)
3. Market Conditions: If the overall market is ripping higher, the downward effect from lockup expirations can be overshadowed.

In practice, I’ll watch volume, intraday price action, and any big headlines. If the stock’s already tanking two weeks prior for unrelated reasons, I might pass or wait until right before the official expiration to see if any last-minute bounce occurs.

Have you tried trading around lockup expirations? What worked and what didn’t? Do you prefer shorting the stock, using options, or even some hedged approach? Any big surprises or lessons learned?

Cheers,
A fellow quant-nerd who probably needs more sunlight

Hi everyone. I want to start trading options but didn’t realize I have to apply for eligibility to trade a certain level with Schwab.

I’m looking to trade options to buy to open options, then sell to close options. Ideally, I would take profits from premium price changes, and “closing” any obligations on the contract.

Just to clarify, Is this the “Long” options strategy - Lvl 1? Thank you in advance for your responses :)

Need some advice on how to best handle this covered call that will most likely go ITM with the upcoming earnings. I've been entertaining the idea of buying some NVDA so getting exercised is sort of on the table. This is a TFSA account so I cannot sell CSPs.

Here are my options:

1. Use the 800$ on hand + sell a few shares to buy out the contracts. I will get to keep my 60$ cost basis but I will lose all the premiums I've collected along with a few shares. I think this is my preferred choice, will most likely pull the trigger on Monday (hopefully theta decay will eat away some of the contract value).

2. Let it get assigned , buy 100 shares of NVDA and 1xx shares of PLTR. Sell CCs on both stocks and collect premiums to rebuild my position to 200 shares of PLTR. I like the idea of owning both stocks but I think I'll make less in premiums and in growth vs going 100% PLTR.

3. Let it get assigned and buy back in. Given PLTR position with the US govt, I believe that the stock can go to 200-250$ range in the next 4 years, so I don't have a problem buying back in. I just want to ensure that it's close to 95$ so I can continue to sell 3 CCs and collect premiums. The downside is the higher entry point and no "profit cushion" in case there are dips but I believe that we will hover around 100$ mark.

Thanks in advance for the advice!