Selling Premium
Posts specifically about selling options premium as a strategy — when to harvest theta, what conditions must be met before selling, and how to manage the risk of being short options.
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Trading options for a living looks different from what people picture
My actual day is much closer to a series of check-ins spaced an hour or two apart.
Alpha book up 5.22% on a strong theta week
Weekly update on the Alpha Gen book. Strong week. Alpha Gen up 5.22%, driven almost entirely by the Theta sleeve.
Why steep put skew is a gift to gold buyers right now
Quick observation for anyone wanting to add to their gold exposure at lower levels.
The asymmetry in spot-vol that catches people out
Vol often collapses faster on the bounce than it rose on the sell-off.
The SPCX vol crush is underway
Following up on the SPCX vol crush thesis.
What 100% IV on launch day actually means
A market maker pricing the opening chain on a brand-new, retail-loved name has no realised vol history to lean on. He's looking at a flood of one-way call demand coming at him.
How I pick a short-theta structure by regime
How I think about picking a short-theta structure depending on the regime.
Cheap vol that still bleeds you
Natural gas vol is at the lows. But it's not carrying. Cheap on the screen, expensive in the seat.
The trade most miss when vol explodes
When implied vol hits 60%, most retail traders freeze. "Too expensive," they say. They shut down. They watch from the sidelines while the premium gets richer by the day.
Three conditions before I sell premium
Implied vol sitting above realized vol. Variance premium right there for the taking. Simple, right?
Three buckets, one question
Every options trade I take falls into one of three buckets. Delta. Theta. Vega.
Why I'm using flies instead of calls right now
Most traders see SPX stretched 1-2% below VWAP and reach for calls. In 30-vol, that's a terrible trade
One bad day is wrecking your vol reads
One spike to 120% a year ago is still messing with your reads today.
Your model doesn't watch the news
I spent 20 years on institutional desks. The most sophisticated risk decision I ever witnessed was a senior trader hitting pause.
You may be hedging away your edge
Implied correlation used to sit around 60% when I started running dispersion. If you liked a single-stock position, you had time.
Expensive doesn’t mean mispriced
Gold used to trade 15–20 vol. Divide implied vol by 16 and you roughly get the expected daily move. So 16 vol implies about 1% a day.
If it's a delta trade, stop calling it theta
Most iron condors I see aren't theta trades.They're delta trades in disguise...
High IV doesn’t make the trade good
If your first thought is “IV rank is high, this is attractive,” you’re missing the point
If your strategy has no veto, it isn’t a strategy
I don’t have a favorite trade. I have favorite conditions. And when those conditions aren’t present, I stop.