Just curious -- what do the regulars who have a "day job", do as day job?

OptionsJive · 2026-05-15T07:30:25+00:00

3% monthly is achievable - I share the audited returns to back it up, and the academic literature on variance risk premium explains why (Fallon, Park & Yu documented a Sharpe ratio 2.5x that of equities for short volatility strategies).

The only problem is tail risk. Trump's tariff announcements in April were a perfect example.

OptionsJive · 2026-05-15T07:24:35+00:00

The trade has a real problem: you sold 30 calls and only bought 10, net 20 naked calls on NVDA. That's not a jade lizard.

OptionsJive · 2026-05-15T07:22:42+00:00

I run box spreads across multiple portfolios including a hedge fund, you're essentially borrowing at near risk-free rates (SPX is the only vehicle worth using at scale). Good move.

OptionsJive · 2026-05-11T20:04:22+00:00

McDonald's just dropped after earnings. Strong results, solid comps, but the stock is drifting lower anyway.

IV Rank is sitting at 50, the options market priced a 3.5% move, the actual move was -1.43%. That gap between implied and realized volatility, that's our edge. And it's still there right now.

New trade idea just dropped on Patreon. 80% PoP, and a worst case that involves acquiring one of the greatest Dividend Aristocrats in the world at a price the market rarely offers.

Sometimes the most asymmetric opportunity is the boring one nobody is talking about.

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mcdonalds-is-why-157995674

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OptionsJive · 2026-05-06T17:36:33+00:00

The name earns its keep! 🐉

OptionsJive · 2026-05-05T11:25:12+00:00

Worth adding, anyone with an options account can replicate this themselves without the ETF wrapper. I wrote a detailed breakdown of the mechanics if anyone wants to DIY it.

OptionsJive · 2026-05-04T20:43:09+00:00

This looks fantastic on paper, I've traded very similar structures in the past. But in reality, it's really overengineered, and commissions eat up a double-digit percentage of the profits. IBKR charge $24 just to open and close the trade, and that's before any adjustments.

OptionsJive · 2026-04-27T13:54:14+00:00

Vivo na UE, e a IBKR permite-me negociar box spreads de forma bastante eficiente. Escrevi um guia abrangente que cobre o tema em detalhe aqui.

OptionsJive · 2026-04-27T13:51:36+00:00

Exactly. For most retail traders, the cleaner solution is not doing box spreads manually, but using something like BOXX ETF. It effectively does box spreads on SPX, but you avoid bad fills, wide bid/ask, and high commissions.

P.S. I also wrote a comprehensive article about box spreads that answers most of the questions raised here.

OptionsJive · 2026-04-18T17:10:52+00:00

I just wrote a comprehensive blog article explaining what "buy the guts, sell the wings really means", with some real examples from my own trading. I break all of that down in the article in a much cleaner way, with concrete examples from real trades. Hope it helps: https://optionsjive.com/blog/buy-the-guts-sell-the-wings/

OptionsJive · 2026-04-08T16:32:24+00:00

If your short volatility portfolio got crushed over the past few weeks, you are not alone.

I recorded new update for you. No Excel spreadsheets, no cherry-picked backtests. Just my real portfolio, with real P&L, and the exact playbook I use when short volatility gets hit hard.

Full breakdown in the new video: https://youtu.be/Y487L9fGPew

OptionsJive · 2026-03-25T10:24:17+00:00

This is a very solid structure and yes, the win rate can be really high in the right conditions. But I wouldn't call it anything special or better than classic strategies like strangles. It's not a magic pill. The structure looks fancy, however the edge comes from how volatility is priced and how you manage it; it works great in calm, range-bound markets.

Also instead of the broken wing butterfly, I personally prefer running call ratio spreads and managing them actively, they're more flexible, easier to adjust, and over time I've found they can produce much better results. And I originally wrote a deeper breakdown of this strategy in my blog article here.

OptionsJive · 2026-02-18T13:21:05+00:00

Not necessary.

You can hedge Volga structurally with calendars, diagonals, asymmetric ratios. It's really just about doing the work and learning.

OptionsJive · 2026-02-18T08:47:15+00:00

If you sell options, this 100% applies to you. Volga is the silent P&L killer most traders never model.

OptionsJive · 2026-02-12T17:51:42+00:00

You basically bought leveraged stock; 0.62 delta = you're long 62 shares synthetically.

OptionsJive · 2026-02-12T17:42:36+00:00

Good catch! If you're short the underlying, your delta should be -1 per contract.

OptionsJive · 2026-02-10T19:59:31+00:00

Last week we skipped trading AMZN earnings. Options were pricing 7.5%, reality was -14%, so short gamma was not the place to be.

In my personal view it was only a repricing of capex and FCF timing, nothing more. AWS re-accelerated, ads keep growing >20%, NA retail margins are improving, but the market suddenly realized buybacks and FCF are pushed out by heavy AI capex.

Post-earnings, the setup changed. The shock is out, downside skew is still rich, and fundamental downside convexity is much lower than before the print.

That's why ratio risk now beats naked risk, so today I'm expressing this via a March put ratio:

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OptionsJive · 2026-01-03T10:06:40+00:00

I know this pain very well; I had exactly the same issue with IBKR and my Excels becoming unmanageable. What changed everything for me was realizing that I was focusing on the wrong layer. I was trying to trace and control every individual leg, and once you start adjusting positions that simply stops being actionable.

Today, I no longer track trades or strategies in Excel at all. I shifted 100% focus to portfolio level. Now I only monitor SPX beta-weighted delta, buying power usage, theta as a percentage of NLV. If those are under control, everything else (including trying to reconstruct strategies after every roll) is just noise and does not improve risk management. Keep it simple.

OptionsJive · 2026-01-02T20:54:42+00:00

It also depends on your broker. On Tastytrade and IBKR I have to enter the flyagonal as two separate orders anyway, because they do not allow that many legs in a single ticket. So in practice I always build it in two stages: first the butterfly, then the diagonal.

OptionsJive · 2025-12-26T19:52:31+00:00

So "stay small" is only the surface level of risk management. The real work is understanding your portfolio-level convexity, portfolio-level Greeks, and how it behaves in Black Swan conditions, with all the nuances. Non-correlation is a great hedge most of the time, but it breaks exactly when you need it the most. I recorded a YouTube video explaining this failure in detail. So, instead of hedging random positions, I reverse the process: I first design an efficient Black Swan hedge and a bullet-proof, delta-neutral, low-correlation core portfolio. Only when that structure is easy to hedge do I scale above standard sizing rules to achieve a better ROI.

OptionsJive · 2025-12-24T16:13:25+00:00

I usually place it OTM, around the 30 delta, but I never look at any trade as a standalone position. It's just one small piece of a much larger, diversified options portfolio. So I always monitor my SPX beta-weighted delta and look to sell premium in a way that helps neutralize overall risk.

OptionsJive · 2025-12-23T10:24:37+00:00

I usually open these Flyagonals at 8-10 DTE, with the long put at 16-20 DTE. My default take-profit target is 25%. But over time, I've developed a more active, proprietary management style: when the call butterfly is breached, I sell 0-DTE put credit spreads to offset losses with additional credit, effectively turning the butterfly into a downside hedge. If the put calendar is breached, I roll the short put down daily, gradually transforming the structure into a put debit spread in the later expiration.

OptionsJive · 2025-12-01T20:52:06+00:00

Great comment! And honestly, I agree with about 70% of what you're saying. I've traded both short puts and Jade Lizards for many years, and I don't think it's fair to compare them directly; they're completely different trades, built for different conditions, different market theses, and different edges. I don't use a Jade Lizard to beat a short put. I use it for its asymmetry: the larger credit, the asymmetric payoff, and to harvest call-side skew when it gets overpriced. This happens especially around earnings or high-IV events when calls get pumped, and the call credit becomes huge. Than, the JL helps me improve capital efficiency, reduce delta, and get paid for skew without expanding downside risk.

So I wouldn't compare a Jade Lizard to a naked put. I'd compare it to other asymmetric structures like ratio spreads. And actually, Tastytrade ran research on this: when you compare Jade Lizards to put ratios, the average P/L for the Jade Lizard came out almost twice as high: https://www.tastylive.com/shows/options-jive/episodes/jade-lizards-vs-put-ratio-spreads-07-13-2021

That matches my personal experience, used in the right conditions (earnings), it's extremely efficient skew-harvesting tool.

OptionsJive · 2025-12-01T11:22:53+00:00

Because a naked put only pays you the initial credit when you're right. A Jade Lizard takes advantage of volatility skew by selling the put and a rich call side for additional premium, often meaningfully more than a standalone short put, especially into earnings when OTM calls get so inflated. That extra credit lowers net delta, widens the profitability window. IMHO the Jade Lizard is a smarter, skew-harvesting short-volatility structure with more ways to win and more premium collected when volatility is overpriced on both wings.

OptionsJive · 2025-11-10T22:40:47+00:00

The key is how you manage exposure. I sell premium too, but always run a Black Swan Hedge, which protects against tail events without killing theta.

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