Track
Foundations
What options are, how a chain works, and the four building blocks every strategy is made of.
- 01 Why options exist A contract on a future price, and what people actually do with it. 7 min
- 02 Calls, puts, and how to read a chain Two contract types, four fields in a quote, two components of premium, three states of moneyness. 9 min
- 03 What moves premium Three forces push premium around: time, distance from strike, volatility. Telling them apart is half of every post-mortem. 7 min
- 04 Implied volatility, what it is and is not IV is the market's pricing of how much movement to expect, not which direction. Read it with a unit, not just a number. 9 min
- 05 The payoff diagram at expiration A curve that reads max profit, max loss, and breakeven at a glance. Same shape across thousands of strategies. 8 min
- 06 Bid, ask, mid, and how fills happen Spread is a tax you pay every round trip. On liquid options it is cheap. On illiquid options it can eat the whole thesis. 7 min
- 07 Open interest vs volume Two numbers in every chain. Stock vs flow. They mean different things and the difference is information. 6 min
- 08 Exercise and assignment in plain language What actually happens in your account when an option is exercised. Why early assignment is rare and where the exception sits. 8 min
- 09 American style, European style, and early exercise Two settlement rules, two product families, one operational rule of thumb: do not exercise early. 6 min
- 10 A trade from entry to exit One long call in SPY, end to end. Thesis, strike, DTE, entry, management, exit. Every step has a decision. 10 min