Blog
Articles about options.
Sep 12, 2026
When implied volatility hits its floor, does it come back up?
Everyone assumes cheap volatility comes back. Measured across 6,600 episodes and 122 tickers: it rises within ten sessions 74% of the time, against 57% from an ordinary starting point. Including the part that disappoints.
Aug 31, 2026
The Premium You Sold Was a Direction You Took
Ten years of real option chains, 2,000 credit verticals, commissions deducted. Selling puts on a rising ETF made money; selling calls on the same ETF lost more. On a sideways one, neither side produced anything. The win rate pointed the wrong way in all eighteen configurations tested.
Aug 14, 2026
Pre-Earnings Entry Price: What 31,000 Cycles Say
The card tells you whether today's entry is cheap against its own history. That reading only means something if it predicts anything — so I tested it, walk-forward, on every completed cycle. It does. The uncomfortable part is what happened when I tested the win rate filter the same way.
Aug 12, 2026
Most Winners Arrive in the First Three Days
A reader observed that pre-earnings winners cluster in the first week. The raw histogram would say that even if nothing real were happening — so I checked properly. The pattern holds, but the conclusion isn't the one you'd expect.
Aug 11, 2026
Expensive Compared to What?
A $12 straddle on a $200 stock is not expensive or cheap. It is $12. Whether that is a lot depends entirely on what you compare it to — and there are three defensible comparisons, each answering something different. Two compare the ticker to itself. Only one compares a price to something real.
Aug 6, 2026
Expensive Isn't a Veto
A pre-earnings setup my own entry gauges told me to skip. It returned 42%. Here's what that does and doesn't mean about reading an expensive entry.