CBOE

OptionsMeerkat

Yeah, this is doable, but most screeners only cover half of it. Barchart, OptionStrat, Unusual Whales, Market Chameleon will filter delta, DTE, IV, OI and volume. Premium per day and strike vs expected move you usually end up doing in a spreadsheet. Or pull the chain yourself (CBOE delayed is free, Polygon/Tradier have APIs) and calculate it. An LLM can help, but only if it's calling real data, otherwise it makes numbers up. The big one is checking earnings on every expiry, not just the front one, and filtering spread/OI before you rank. I've been building something around this, so biased.

LaconicB

CBOE has that data for S&P500. From 6/30/1986 to 12/31/2018, put selling averaged an annual return of 9.54% compared to the S&P500 return of 9.80%. The interesting thing about this data, put selling only showed to outperform at the top of bullish markets that created newer highs when recovering out of a bear market. The amount of time it took to recover and push higher returns than put selling was determined by the amount of time it took to recover from the bear market, as put selling kept climbing. At the end of these results provided by CBOE, the S&P500 had just barely recovered throughout that bull run in the end to edge out put selling. Had the data stopped a year early in the bull run, put selling would have came out on top. When looking at the chart, put selling was on top for more time versus buy and hold S&P500. Put selling also had less downdraw at -32.7% versus S&P500 at -50.9%. Additionally, put selling longest downdraw in months was at 40 months versus S&P500 with 73 months. 

ANGELeffEr

I finished business school and entered the finance industry in the late 90s. I interned at Credit Suisse First Boston-when the janitorial staff decided that it was time to take two humdrum banks and rebrand them as “Investment Banks”, because anyone with an ASBA, is basically an “investment banker”. So things are surely different culturally in the finance industry since my Wall Street Adjacent time. But the fact is that all the banks, mortgage brokers, HFs & IIs, securities brokers and dealers & the rest of the money industry use that exact phrasing to describe the entry level, churn & burn positions they all have so they have someone to do every menial, mind numbing task that the financial system has by the thousands. Also, remember that of all the university degrees available to pursue, the Business Administration degree, and Finance in particular, have a higher than average number of students who have no issue with “doing whatever it takes”-no matter the task. Basically, watch your back, from those on your level but especially those 1-2 rungs higher up the ladder than you. ~~Scapegoats~~ Young, motivated, upwardly mobile team players are an Integral part of the Finance Club. In all honesty, I actually enjoyed my time in Finance, Investment Banking turned out to be a sleep under your desk every nite (once happy hour ended) type of deals but I fit right in with the Analyst crew. I was always fascinated by Arbitrage, and the early 00s will forever be the Mecca of Arbitrage, Quants, & Algo. Lucky for me I joined one at the forefront of Algo Trading. Then I met a beautiful woman who was smarter and better than me in every way possible-she was a couple years older and was exiting the ETF & Derivatives TradeDesk at Susquehanna(Jane Street) for a less stressful position at the CBOE as they converted from pit to Algo trading-following after her was the best decision of my life, Financially, Emotionally, in every way. My career would have moved away from organizational Trading and into personal day trading regardless, but for her, I personally think she made the right decision for her mental health, but financially-she left one of the best trading desks ever, nobody knew that at the time(except every body outside of SIG). The people who worked at SIG didn’t look, talk or act like every other person in that industry, she claims they were Wall Street’s Geek Squad, and they really were…on one hand you had these nerdy Quants and their Binomial Trees and on the other they were the ruthless Traders in the Black Jackets who spent more time playing and taking about poker than finance. SIG was a unique place, glad they evolved and eventually became Jane Street-being named Susquehanna International Group just didn’t really suit them.

LaconicB

When I made my comment, I was accidentally commenting on equity option fills. I notice all of your data is SPX from CBOE. I would say your data is more accurate with index options versus equity options, unless you have a way to see price improvement on those like the study from the link you provided. I’ve never noticed a fill better than mid when I trade SPX 0dte. I’m interested to see your findings on a bullish day with uptrend. Do the traders end up more profitable or losers like the downtrend day. 

RuleSafe6767

The fact that Berkshire bought says they trust management for the long haul, and even longer term I could see google becoming solid dividend play as the years grind on. I'm watching the CBOE's order book live: https://www.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/book/goog It's trying to dump and there are big buyers stepping in. Sure, Citadel will make money liquidating 2-DTE retail option buyers, but you've got BRK swallowing up Ken's shorts, over and over, buying on discount.

thetaFAANG

hell yes, dear CBOE: options next please

Master-Can-8149

Question here is: will I actually be getting that money based on the closing price of SPX? Im waiting for CBOE’s data but im worried because its allot lol. I tried closing last minute but I only sold 1 because im dumb

spyzoom

Unfortunately, no CBOE Lead Market-Maker (LMM) for XSP binary options since it only launched recently.

Ken385

I think these can be a good product. Basically buying/selling a binary is very similar to buying or selling the option vertical. Say you wanted to sell the XSP 766/765 put vertical. If you sold this for .30, you would have a max loss below 765 (spread is worth a 1) and max gain above 766 (spread is worth zero). If you sold the 765 put binary for .30 you would have the same payout above and below 765 (worth zero or 1) If you are someone who wants to sell an iron condor, you can do this by selling the call and put binary. The problem in the past with binaries is you didn't always have reputable regulated exchanges trading them. You also had very wide markets. With the CBOE, the markets here are very tight, (.03/.04) wide, and you have a regulated exchange. They just give you an alternative to selling verticals. Another thing you can do is hedge your binary with a vertical. This will give you a payout similar to a butterfly. Say you are short the 765 put binary, you can buy the 766/765 put vertical and you would make money (depending on what you paid) between 766 and 765.

sbaeidlloan

So Schwab and CBOE are breaking the laws. Ok

LaconicB

That doesn’t even make sense, CBOE is the only exchange/route that offers SPX and a .10 versus .20 spread doesn’t mean a .10 difference in fill price. The mid price would have to differentiate by .10 for that to happen. A bid/ask of .15/.25 has the same mid price as .10/.30, the later having a .10 wider spread. 

LaconicB

That’s the cost of an XSP butterfly at Schwab with the standard .65 contract fee. With XSP, it depends on the broker. Schwab doesn’t charge extra for XSP but other brokers like TradeStation and a Webull do. Webull charges .55 per XSP contract. CBOE is the only exchange that fills those, so your fills are going to be similar anywhere. The only difference is the cost. I’m not sure about Robinhood, just deleted the app but they have the Good membership that reduces the index contract fees and is the cheapest that way. I think it’s .35 per contract with Gold. 

Confident_Double1392

SPX has additional fees from the CBOE around it so you paying more for those is not surprising, but you'll probably want to check if that 1.6 is purely commissions or if that's commissions AND fees. If you become a high volume trader, you can contact IBKR and negotiate better commission rates since you're providing a large options flow.

optionmice

Thank you for the comment and words of encouragement. Thats high praise coming from someone with your experience as a product designer/owner. Lesson content is actually the most difficult part of the process. It is initially written with the help of AI, based on a curriculum I designed and rules I wrote (thats probably the consistency you noticed). I keep refining those rules. The facts are standard options mechanics that use material from CBOE, OCC, etc. as the reference. Nothing is copied from other sources. Finally, I take lessons, test them and rewrite them as needed. User feedback is also extremely important, each question has a button where users can report anything they find wrong with the question. More often than not they are right and the question gets at least a touch-up. If you can think of anything that can be improved (as a designer or a trader) I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks again.

esInvests

Vanna and charm flows have become a new obsession with retail, it’s really interesting seeing how it’s been swept up. For this, there unfortunately isn’t a test I can run that is true to form. The reality is nobody knows what dealers hold. And many of the assumptions for these various tools, GEX, “vanna and charm flows” are predicated on that exact information. I did a deep look into GEX because I found research that contained privileged information - meaning they were able obtain true dealer level information. Not simply what CBOE C1 provides via tagging but information around their actual books which is critical. Because of that foundation, I opted to attempt to replicate theirs first, then use the litany of available data sources to research it on my own. Over 1 million points and features examined. It amounted to no directional information ratios, slight volatility information ratios (but underperforms standard measures like IVP and IV deciles). This is all for GEX. So I can absolutely look at vanna and charm, I have a sense of what I’ll see but it’s with the massive caveat that I (nor anyone else for that matter) can actually see what’s inside various dealer books to estimate their actual balancing actions. It’s easy to see and calculate but all of this has been spewed by a few “influencers” and has poisoned the minds of thousands of traders.

english_fool

hood is in CBOE, been trading since 07:30 dude

d33p7r0ubl3

Would be nice when CBOE does it

Ken385

You can trade SPX and VIX options pre market at Fidelity starting at 7am et. But you need to use Active Trader or Trader Plus. Quote from one of their Reps on the Fidelity sub, *Currently, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) provides extended-hours trading for options in the premarket on the S&P 500 Index (.SPX and .SPXW) and S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX). We currently support this trading Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. ET through Active Trader Pro (ATP) and Fidelity Trader+ Desktop.*

spendology

Are you deaf? Do you speak Engkish? CME, CBOE, ..

moorhound

Damn, DeepSeek 4.1 is starting to make its testing rounds too. With the extended CBOE hours starting next week we are *so fucking primed* for a straight-up crash

Ken385

Hopefully this will take place as announced. This will happen on the CBOE. It was supposed to happen twice earlier this year and was cancelled at the last minute each time. CBOE's announcement notice, [Update - C1 Options to Offer Expanded Trading Hours for Select Equity Options](https://www.cboe.com/notices/content/?id=62044)

Spear_n_Magic_Helmet

so the CBOE won't let me be, or let me be me

gardeal23

Look up CBOE rate hike odd. We basically went so red so fast yesterday that the bad ppi isn’t crazy enough to drop us, since positioning already prices some of the shock in. Price having big jumps and drops is partially do to surprise

miata_only

Hard to believe these people can walk around the floor of the CBOE with a deep dish pizza and still call themselves men, you guys

First-Hotel4694

there are some on here also on your broker's web site as well as on the CBOE or just Google it and you'll find all kinds of teaching aides.

Illustrious-Exit7828

i’ve been doing the same thing on a couple of accounts – log the Rule 606 destination for every order. e‑trade tends to send the roll to a bunch of different makers (xcbo, amxo, xmi…) while ibkr often locks it into a single maker under smart routing. if you compare just the net‑price that comes through that maker, the difference almost disappears. next step would be to re‑run the tests with ibkr’s maximize‑fill and with a direct cross‑exchange submission to the CBOE and see if the numbers line up.

2fingers

Yes, I am sure of that. Here's examples of what that field streams along with the corresponding MM: * CES\_OPT\_F1\_J1 = Citadel Securities * DASH\_OPT\_F1\_J2 = DASH Financial Technologies * SIG\_OPT\_F1\_J1 = Susquehanna Securities * WOLF\_OPT\_F1\_J2 = Wolverine Trading * JANESTREET\_OPT\_F1\_J1 = Jane Street Capital The "F1\_J1" part will vary a bit. Complex orders I think should get route names for all legs but they'll always be the same. If the order fills, there's also the fill message (OrderFillCompleted) that carries "ExecutionInfo.Exchange", the exchange where the fill printed (CBOE, MIAX…), and also its own ExecutionInfo.RouteName. The fill tells you where it executed. For the market maker it was sent to, ExecutionRequested is the reliable source though, because it arrives even when the order never fills.

Ken385

Yes, Maximize fill is the one you want for the for best fill prices. IBKR will pass on exchange rebates/costs. There are 18 different options exchanges, and they all have different rebate models. If your order is sent to an exchange that gives you a large rebate, your fill may not be as good as if your order is sent to one that doesn't, as there are extra costs for the other side. And yes I do find there is a difference if fills. I don't use IBKR, but with my broker, I will generally send a spread order to the CBOE first for a 1 lot (no rebate) and then once I am filled I will send to other exchanges that offer big rebates to see if I am filled at the same price. Sometimes I will and sometimes I wont. But the exchange your order is sent will matter. With IBKR they charge extra for direct routing, so you need to depend on their smart router.

Ken385

Here's a suggestion if you are comparing fills. On IBKR (pro) , set the smart router to best fill. There are a few different settings here, such as max rebate, which may not give the best fill.. For the Schwab using TOS, direct the order to the CBOE. This may improve fills at these brokers for your next test.

jetpilot6969

do you think someone at CBOE just says....yeah lets pin at 7800 today

Fit_Equal6932

The options order count requirement if by CBOE and all brokers have to follow it. They don’t sell your flow so they won’t ban you for “toxic flow” like E\*TRADE would.

Decent-Door-8993

The whole CYA line from Schwab tracks perfectly with how these things always roll out, new regs drop but the brokers drag their feet updating internal policies because nobody wants to be the first to blink. The 30 day window is clearly spelled out in that CBOE circular, so it's not like this is ambiguous fine print territory. What gets me is the lack of transparency, you'd think they'd at least say "we're reviewing the updated guidance" instead of pretending the question doesn't exist. Classic move of hoping you'll just accept the old penalty and move on. Glad you got yours lifted at the 30 day mark though, that's the real confirmation everyone needed.

RubiksPoint

I got it from CBOE [here](https://www.cboe.com/markets/us/futures/market-statistics/historical-data/futures/)

RubiksPoint

CBOE has an index called SHORTVOL that goes very far back. I used to back test on this fairly frequently.

Nearby-Guest-7684

Yeah this happens more than people think. When CBOE or your broker's data feed goes down, you're just stuck can't see prices, can't adjust, can't hedge. thats actually one of the reasons I started looking at on-chain options like Hypercall (built on Hyperliquid).

fomoandyoloandnogrow

Ikr it’s even crazier that the CBOE is in Chicago too

Sasaman36

Yeah this happens more than people think. When CBOE or your broker's data feed goes down, you're just stuck can't see prices, can't adjust, can't hedge, maybe only if you try on-chain alts like hypercall (built on hyperliquid)

Backrus

No idea - I'm not really a bond trade, you have to find somebody smarter. When it comes to vol, I track those: - [VXV/VIX Ratio](https://ibb.co/0p8qW5rP) (not updated because CBOE stopped updating their data source on Sep 22) - [inverse MOVE vs S&P](https://ibb.co/Mxd7qxBB) - [DSPX/COR3M](https://ibb.co/N2JRR5jL) (same thing) - [HYG/SPY div](https://ibb.co/rKpjwjy5)

iron_condor34

I've made the same point before with the CC etf's or comparing the PUT and BXM indexes from CBOE compared to the SPX. People will hear what they want but falling into that income trap is bad. Better for us though with all the single name stock vol people here love to sell. Plus, those etf's and bigger investment firms selling vol too on single names. Makes things cheaper lol

Equivalent_Camel_484

Right. The 390 figure is more of a regulation that needs to be enforced by the broker and from the conversation I had with my broker after being dinged with the 390 rule, it was a conversation of "we didn't want to label you, we're required by CBOE rules to label you; call us in 30 days and you'll be good." The part about the markout, toxic flow and adverse selection is appears to be driven monetarily, partly by bad actors taking advantage of broker trading mechanisms sometimes.

watercooling

Hyperliquid is basically a blockchain orderbook; permissionless meaning anyone can deposit and trade long/short with leverage without KYC, as well as build apps on top (including deploying markets). Actually pretty great tech, especially for people without access to US financial infrastructure. It’s outperformed all through the crypto bear market since October, I faded the token HYPE at $8 but still hit a clean 2.5x. Now they’re going for US regulatory compliance, Trump mentioned it by name recently (of course it’s an insider traders dream for reasons already mentioned, plenty of 8-9 figure oil trades have been made before Iran announcements lol), it’s definitely going to eat some of the retail trader market share from CBOE/CME.

MajesticBread9147

Small ones that are looked over imo are: Trekor minerals [$TGB] a company that has owned A copper mine in BC for years but recently opened a mine in Arizona using a technology that's basically fracking but for copper, yet it's more environmentally friendly and uses significantly less resources. No big pit or tunnels. They pump a weak acid into the ground, and then pump that back up with even more pressure to get everything and make sure it doesn't get into the water. This means that their cost per pound is super low, particularly regarding their fuel usage. Energy Recovery Inc [$ERII] who manufactures pressure exchanger technology that are able to be added to cyclical-high pressure systems, primarily desalination plants and water filtration and recovery from industrial uses. Water filtration requires very high pressure liquid and their devices can be added on to the part of systems after the "high pressure" part is no longer needed to transfer that energy back to the beginning of the cycle, thus massively increasing efficiency. Their pressure exchangers can run in desalination plants for 30 years before maintenance is needed, and can reduce energy needs in desalination plants by 60%. They are in a cyclclical business dominated by large projects, but enjoy a neae-monopoly in that space. So a project being delayed by a quarter means stock drops due to large earnings miss, but then it jumps up the next one. They're currently being held back by the Iran war, but they've pointed out that during Covid despite order slowdowns demand jumped the next year to maintain their expected CAGR. Some major ones that I think are undervalued are American Express which should be self-explanatory and CBOE which specifically cites the proliferation of options trading by retail investors as a headwind for them.

NervousChemistry7401

CNBC live shot in CBOE and you hear everyone screaming “buy!” You know what to do.

duboilburner

I don't think there is as much liquidity in futures options as there are in the actual index options. The problem with futures options is futures as a whole are done through CME, including their options. CME doesn't release accurate position data flows. Only CBOE does that, and CBOE only does it for SPX and VIX--nothing else. So, GEX analysis for anything other than SPX or VIX is going to be with either the naive model or an inference model, which simply isn't going to be accurate. /ES futures you can get useful levels thanks to the accurate SPX options positions if you have that data. Market makers delta hedge their SPX options book with /ES futures.

Sean_VasDeferens

CBOE has been trading SPX 24/5 for a few years now.

duboilburner

I count 4, not 5. There might be more now, I don't know. It's pretty easy to spot naive gamma models. They're "too neat" with a smooth progression from positive to negative gamma as you go down in strikes. Once you're in "negative gamma," there is no random positive gamma individual strikes with the naive model. The naive model is only showing you where things are going from call dominated to put dominated, which is why it looks the way it does. Once you see the difference between the models, it becomes \*very\* easy to spot. Because the real dealer positions are not anywhere near as neat as that. The accurate models will tell you exactly how much market makers are short or long and of what type of contracts. I had been an UnusualWhales subscriber for a long time, and was there when they introduced Periscope. I had listened to Brent Kochuba a number of times thanks to him appearing on Tastylive's "Jones & Friends" show forever ago (at least as far back as 2021, maybe 2022). I happened across VolSignals randomly on twitter in early 2025 and saw him, time stamped and everything, demonstrate knowing when price was going to stop, pause and eventually reverse intraday. So, I joined his chat to see if I could find out more. Turns out he was using OptionsDepth at the time for the accurate data and swore by it. He has since created his own model with his own developers--many of whom are relationships he had from when he was a market maker himself, and starting selling subscriptions to it towards the end of 2025. CBOE sells the accurate positioning data, the above 4 are just the companies I know of who parse it and display it in their own way--and it's generally cheaper to buy from them and use their already processed product than it would be to pay CBOE directly yourself. They're able to defray the costs by selling subscriptions. I do like OptionsDepth and VS3D for their gradient maps that update with the every 10 minute position updates. SpotGamma may have something similar--I'm not sure, but Periscope does not. Periscope just has the greeks by strike and positions by strike. The charm gradient graphs in particular are very useful from OD and VS3D once you understand what it's telling you about what market makers need to do as time passes closer to expiration.

Popular_Cap8269

I looked on CBOE, but didn’t find it. Do you have the link please?

planeage

SPX or XSP (both are index, cash settled, and European style). XSP is the CBOE 1/10th scale S & P 500 index (just like SPY with a lower management fee so it's like $2 or $3 higher than SPY at any given moment. You sorry have the benefit of being about to trade XSP options 23/5 on Robinhood, meaning you can trade the options at 2:00 AM on Tuesday if you so desire

Ken385

With XSP, there is no routing difference. All orders will be routed to the CBOE, as it is single listed there.

Life-Trade-6514

they've been moving it to 4:15 recently once CBOE closes

LaconicB

With index options on CBOE, not much of a difference that I’ve found. I’ve only used SPX and XSP.  I’ve tested the same strikes with brokers like Schwab and tastytrade, and it’s all the same. I might have a better fill with Tastytrade by 1 cent but when it’s time to exit, I have a better fill at Schwab by 2 cents. 

Ken385

If you are trading XSP (or SPX) your broker doesn't really matter. All orders will be sent to the CBOE as these products are single listed here. These orders are as not desirable for the payment for order flow buyers because of this. You will get possible price improvements through the CBOE's AIM (Automatic Improvement Mechanism) for single orders and through COA (Complex order auction) for spreads. One advantage of Robinhood is you will have access to the after hours seesions in XSP an SPX.

LaconicB

You’re talking about index options that trade exclusively on CBOE. They do not have PFOF, the exchange charges a fee for those. 

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 5.0000 +0.0040 (+0.08% 5%

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 4.9980 +0.0020 (+0.04%) GREEN

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 4.9880 -0.0080 (-0.16%)

Got_Engineers

That is interesting and expected. I can’t remember by what the source was from but It was from CBOE. I believe it was over the last few years. The most profitable trade by sharpe ratio was selling puts. There is also an insane amount of covered call ETF and market makers that exist in that shorter too longer dated timeframe such as tenors of less than one month. I believe there’s distinct levels of market makers that exist across micro structure, time frames and the covered call people are always there waiting. So it doesn’t surprise me that the covered call is on top of the list is it has the most eyeballs . If you assume this list is correct in these are the best strategies on paper, you also can think about the game theory aspect of the people or participants in these markets on these strategies. Most of these top rank strategies would have the most players and participants and eyeballs. You know such as the case because there’s always gonna be multipliers more people trying to sell you options than buying them from you. So you have to ask yourself if I know all this information how can I still win? For a retail trader I think the biggest edge is exist in directional trading strategies alone because you’re not competing with as many people. The people selling the cheapest most depressed short dated options are not doing it because they want to. They’re doing it because they’re managing their books. Almost every other of these risk premia strategies you’re competing against everyone. Focusing on long call and outs or risk reversals on short dated timeframes, you’re probably competing with someone that has to be there because of their own book. So if you know, they have to be there it’s much easier to anticipate. I digress

RuleSafe6767

Sure; Ive watched AMZN trade on CBOE's exchanges almost daily for years. You can see the orderbook here (and watch it in realtime): https://www.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/book/amzn/ Click the EDGX, EDGA, BZX, and BYX exchanges to see the daily volume. When AMZN volatility drops combined with price nearing a multi-month VWAP low, high volume days like this means institutions are loading up (and have exhausted the dark pools; so they take from the lit markets). Now, this is no guarantee that this is some kind of bottom, but it usually means institutions are comfortable with the price, and they're not going to care if it goes a bit lower. These high volume days usually span a week or so. Historically, Ive watched these play out in the 180s, 200s, and 220s. Usually price has fallen around these events, but with enough time, they have usually proven to be pretty good. If the market keeps selling off, my guess we could see AMZN touch high 220s but probably not much worse.

RuleSafe6767

Above average volume on CBOE exchanges for AMZN today. Bought call spreads.

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE 5.01 % just saying

Nelsonsrightknacker

5.01 +0.05 (+0.91%) IT happened again CBOE !

tinim9

I asked Claude AI agent this: *"Schwab filled 10 SPX options contract $10 cheaper than intrinsic value. Please look at the attached images and let me know your take on this issue.*" Below is the response. OP, you have case. Looking at your images: you had a **stop-market** sell order on the SPXW 7690 put (stop = $85.00), and it filled in three pieces at 11:05 AM — $75.30, $74.90, and $74.90 — for an average fill around **$74.94**. Here's the intrinsic value problem: * At **11:05 AM**, SPX was at **$7,594.84** (image 3). Intrinsic value of the 7690 put = 7690 − 7594.84 = **$95.16**. * At **11:06 AM**, SPX was at **$7,605.16** (image 2). Intrinsic value = 7690 − 7605.16 = **$84.84**. Either way you slice it, your contracts filled roughly **$10–20 below intrinsic value** at the moment they executed. That's the issue you're flagging, and it's a legitimate one — for a cash-settled, European-style index option like SPX/SPXW, the price should almost never trade meaningfully below intrinsic value, because there's no early-exercise arbitrage but market makers still generally won't sell below intrinsic (they'd be handing away a "free" $10–20 per contract, ×10 contracts ×100 = $10,000–20,000). **What likely happened:** 1. **Stop-market orders have no price protection.** Your order was a *stop*, not a *stop-limit*. Once SPX hit the level that triggered your $85 stop, the order became a plain market order and filled at whatever the prevailing bid was — not at $85, and not tied to intrinsic value at all. 2. **The chart shows exactly the kind of whipsaw that causes this.** Between \~10:40 and 11:15, SPX was swinging violently (down to the 7590s, back up, down again). During fast, volatile moves like that, option quotes/bids can go stale, gap, or get temporarily thin, so a market order can print well away from fair value for a few seconds. 3. **Multiple small fills at the same lousy price (8 contracts at $74.90) suggests you hit a thin/stale bid**, not necessarily a "flash crash" print — likely a market maker's resting bid that hadn't updated fast enough during the swing, and your market order swept it. **What this does** ***not*** **necessarily mean:** it doesn't automatically mean Schwab did something wrong — the exchange, not the broker, determines whose bid gets hit, and Schwab is obligated to route for best execution among *displayed* quotes, not to guarantee intrinsic-value pricing. But a fill that far below intrinsic, especially across multiple fills, is exactly the kind of thing brokers and exchanges will review as a **potential erroneous trade / "clearly erroneous execution."** **What I'd do:** * Call Schwab's trading desk (not just chat) and specifically ask for a **trade execution review / clearly erroneous trade claim**, citing the SPX level at 11:05 AM ET vs. your fill price. * Ask Schwab to check whether **CBOE (SPX's listing exchange)** flagged that print as erroneous — exchanges have rules (e.g., CBOE Rule on erroneous trades) for options executed a set dollar/percentage amount away from theoretical value in fast markets. * Get the **time & sales / NBBO snapshot** for SPXW 7690P at 11:05 AM from Schwab — if the NBBO bid was actually higher than $74.90 at that instant, you have a strong case your order was filled outside the NBBO, which is a real violation. I'm not a lawyer or financial advisor, so treat this as informational, not a guarantee of outcome — but the numbers you've shown are a legitimate basis to push Schwab for a review or adjustment.

Galadon17

And VIX as well, also CBOE exclusive

papakong88

SPX Pros: * Higher liquidity, however, I do not find it a problem for NDX SPX Cons: * Lower premium * Price increment at 5 cents vs NDX at 1 cent - a disadvantage for spreads * Additional CBOE fee of 0.75 per contract - NDX has none

FamiliarPermission

Note they said: "subject to regulatory review". CBOE made a different announcement last year about allowing trading of expiring AM-settled index options on their expiration date and they said that would be effective September 2025. That still hasn't happened. Link to that article on their official website: https://www.cboe.com/notices/content/?id=55365

Ready-Molasses-7093

so happy to see AM expiry options now. i really hope they do this for more underlyings, especially NDX and RUT. we love you CBOE

scotty9090

Here’s the CBOE’s page on it: https://www.cboe.com/tradable-products/sp-500/xsp-options/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PMI-Retail-S&P-500-Suite---SPX/XSP-Non-Brand---US/NL/HK&utm_term=NA&utm_content=XSP-NB-EXT&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23423593416&gclid=Cj0KCQjw--7UBhCpARIsAGJBptjGrSVsfVPvsnX2YFdz3iV5ieGzWHTEJvnbpdUjdPBmYmQt0J3lf9saAsGiEALw_wcB

Got_Engineers

CBOE had research a while ago, where they said selling puts has been the most profitable trade on Wall Street by sharpe ratio.

Im_a_good_Gentle-man

nobody cares about CBOE closing bell wtf

BullshittingApe

Replicating this site would be a same-day job for Claude — everything on it is off-the-shelf SaaS scaffolding wrapped around a simple rules engine, with zero proprietary tech, IP, or hard-to-source data. What the site actually is It's a single-page marketing site + gated dashboard for a $37/mo SPX/ES "gamma wall" scoring tool. Strip away the copy and it's four components: a landing page, an 11-field scoring readout (Wall Strength, GEX Regime, Flip Proximity, Directional Bias, Wall Shift/Migration, Risk Warning), a Stripe paywall, and a scheduled job that recalculates the scores through the trading day. Why nothing here is proprietary The data isn't theirs. Gamma exposure (GEX) is computed from public options open interest and Greeks — the same inputs every GEX tool (SpotGamma, GammaEdge, unofficial free trackers) already uses. There's no unique dataset here, just a standard options-chain feed (e.g., CBOE, Polygon, Tradier, or a free options API) run through a gamma-exposure formula that's published and well-documented. The "scoring" is just labeled thresholds. Fragile/Moderate/Strong/Dominant, the confidence score, "flip proximity as a multiple of expected move" — these are all deterministic bucket rules on top of GEX math, not a trained model or secret sauce. Claude can write that logic directly from the plain-English descriptions already sitting in the page copy. The frontend is a template pattern. Hero, "how it works" 3-step, feature breakdown with screenshots, single pricing tier, FAQ, disclaimer footer — this is the standard indie-SaaS landing page structure, almost certainly built fast with Next.js/React + Tailwind + a component library, deployed on Vercel. Nothing about the layout, animations, or copy tone is technically defensible. The infra is commodity. Stripe for billing, a cron job or serverless function for the intraday refresh, a database row per session snapshot. All boilerplate any competent dev (or Claude) assembles from memory. None of these steps involve novel engineering — it's assembling known primitives. Want me to build a working clone right now?

kmouratidis

After today my only hope is for an Iranian missile to hit CBOE's headquarters and wipe out my option trades.

Fit_Equal6932

From the CBOE's perspective they count how orders show up on the exchange, a broken up order will count as multiple. Here is the technicality. Let's say there are 10 contracts at a $1 and another 10 at $1.10, you send an order to lift 20 contracts with a limit price of $1.10, the exchange sees it as a single order but would print two fills for it. In this case you used up 1 order. Let's say the wholesaler did split up the order and gave you fills from multiple exchanges then you would have utilized multiple orders since each exchange will count the one it saw. Most people never have to deal with this. A lot of people who trade a lot do scalping with small contract sizes and are fine with the simple assumption. But if you are also putting on large sizes and sending a lot of orders then you need to be aware of all these subtleties.

fujimonster

and all of them have that rule -- it's a CBOE rule, the 390 per day average rule

mookie_uke1619

The market will gain and lose a percent every day to trade flat daily through the foreseeable future. Options are priced beyond the range. Any move is a loser. Sit this out until the algorithms and CBOE options writers are no longer able to fleece the retail trader.

iron_condor34

"I keep reading about delta-neutral strategies. Is delta neutrality particularly useful when IV is low, or am I conflating two separate concepts?" All delta neutral means is you're trying to take on no directional exposure of the underlying. Isolating for the movement of the underlying you're trading. And changes in implied vol. But, there will be some directional exposure taken due to once the underlying moves, your deltas will obv change. Then you'd come up with an idea of when to hedge your deltas. "• How do you approach low-IV environments? Do you simply sell less premium, or switch strategies/exposures?" You're a retail trader. You can go and look for areas of the market that are moving around. If stocks aren't moving, go look at bonds, or metals, etc. You can keep selling vol but then it really becomes a game of sizing and risk. Also, short vol can be pretty good when vol is "low" because you make money when the underlying isn't moving. You have to come up with the distinction if it's worth it to sell. Looking into volatility risk premium would be worth your while. With the Vix; I wouldn't blindly trade seasonality outside of maybe holidays. It can be a pretty good trade to be short vol into a holiday. September maybe historically good for volatility; doesn't mean it's always given to go up. You also can't trade the VIX index. You can trade VIX options, futures or the vol etp's. Your best bet is to pay attention more to the futures. Spot VIX maybe at 14 but September VX futs are trading at 16.9 and OCT is 18.73. That's what you're trading. There's good material online to read about the VIX. CBOE has the white paper on it plus the VIX decomposition that came out last year.

Antifragilitee

Haven't read that one — on it now, thanks. From my results and your Summary it sounds like we may have converged on the same headline: implementation (especially when you sell) dominates the strategy design?? On granularity: my archive is EOD only — every listed contract with bid/ask, volume, OI and greeks at each close, which for $590 is absurd value. Intraday exists (CBOE DataShop etc.) but it's an order of magnitude more money. Worth knowing for my numbers: the 50x trigger is checked on daily closes, so the big monetisations (86x, 107x) are close prints — a live intraday trigger would have seen different (possibly better, possibly worse) fills on the actual panic days. And yeah, happy to talk more — here or DMs!

ThatsAllFolksAgain

Options should be outlawed. They should change the CBOE operations using the polymetric betting model. Break the link between shares and options. The options have just become too easy to manipulate for the likes of Citadel and Jane Street. This legal theft must be stopped.

RuleSafe6767

Anyone picking up cheap AMZN on CBOE EDGX weekends trading right now? It traded as low as 223, but is now around 256. You can see the orderbook and trades: https://www.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/book/amzn/, click the EDGX exchange

AphexPin

CBOE is a completely different feed. OPRA is not 'wrong', you have austigmatism and should see a doctor ASAP. You can get OPRA for $200/mo. It's what most people do. And the OF is unsigned, and it's most the options volume. Pull your head out of your ass.

D4vidWebb

Where do you get the data? From a CBOE API or do you scrape it or something like that? Genuinely interested. Looks good :)

vandalizethethief

Hey man, just go look at this website. I would never share this filth unless it was surprise. owned by SoFi who is like an abusive bank. First, it’s “check out my high interest saving account”. Then it was don’t you want to pay me $120 a year for access to that interest? What, hell no. Then you offer me 1% match on taxable accounts now it’s 2% percent but it’s given up front so they have horrible clawbacks. I had no idea and deposited $10k to buy automates, mainly CAIE and CAGE plus a little bit of long term bonds that I figure if they go tits up then I will be worried about looters not my portfolio. Don’t sign up for anything just look at what AI trading is good at it and all great traders are good at it because it works quickly but this is more established strategies you can copy and adapt. Basically, you want money or to be famous on some The drawdowns suck though but stick to the tried and true quant models https://www.composer.trade I also called out Hyperliquid and PURR months ago and mentioned them by name in a NASDAQ goes to 23/7 or whatever. It got an insane amount of upvotes but I said “because of Hyperliquid”. Now look at these bums over at the CME, CBOE and NASDAQ. Scared shitless of perps. Faster, less fees, better design and now they can’t have their fees because as a token holder you basically get 99% of Hyperliquid’s revenue of fees through 24/7 buybacks. We profit, they profit and it’s the most share/token holder company I’ve come across in a while. That is their selling point. No VC money, 11 guys, all geniuses at HFT and MM at Citadel just bootstrapped. It blew up overnight and then rode the crypto Trump boom but set itself apart when it took over oil trading with crude and Brent futures built into a perp, 24/7. No one wants to get fucked by Trump on a Friday. Turns out you don’t have to & quickly oil futures opened at Huperliquids perp pricing for Brent and crude. They did a great job on trading the pre-IPO of CXMT (biggest Chinese DRAM company) within a few percent which is much more accurate. Sigh….too much BTC ETH SOL HYPE trading, not enough sleep hence all the “caffeine” and rambling

Illustrious_Rub2975

Fair enough if you want to reduce your original argument strictly to “there is a better way to estimate positioning than naive OI assumptions,” I don’t disagree. Better participant/open-close information obviously improves the inference. That was never the interesting disagreement. But you’re now claiming I invented everything beyond that, when you literally wrote: “You don’t need the 500 underlyings to have predictive power trading SPX for example.” You also said GEX “shows biases in how the market moves” and that traders can use those biases “to improve the outcomes of many different types of trades.” So predictive usefulness was not a phantom claim I introduced. You explicitly brought it into the discussion yourself. Likewise, you didn’t merely say the CBOE data produces a *better estimate*. You said it allows firms to “compile and track actual market maker positions precisely. So no guessing.” Again, that is a substantially stronger claim. If your position now is simply: **naive OI GEX is badly specified, richer transaction classification produces a superior estimate of listed SPX dealer positioning, and that positioning should be interpreted as a market-state/hedging-flow tool rather than a directional signal** then we’re actually much closer to agreement. But once you say it has “predictive power,” describes exploitable movement biases, and can improve trade outcomes, you’ve moved beyond measurement methodology and made an empirical claim about the information contained in that measurement. At that point asking what incremental predictive information it actually contains is not a deflection. It is the obvious next question. And no, you don’t have to teach me how to trade it. But “go learn from someone else whether it works” isn’t evidence for a claim you already made about its predictive power. I’m perfectly happy to drop the illiquidity tangent because you’re right that it wasn’t the original topic. But you can’t retroactively narrow your own comments and then accuse everyone else of inventing the parts you actually wrote.

fuckagriculture

it's also pretty useless. The CBOE released a paper on it, dealer hedging only makes up at most 0.2% of daily volume. [https://www.cboe.com/insights/posts/0-dt-es-decoded-positioning-trends-and-market-impact?utm\_source=chatgpt.com](https://www.cboe.com/insights/posts/0-dt-es-decoded-positioning-trends-and-market-impact?utm_source=chatgpt.com) For heatmaps I think OI based ones are probably better for getting an idea of how the market will move with positioning

Ken385

There are 18 different options exchanges. Each has its own rules on order of fills in its book. Some offer retail priority, some offer price time, some are pro rata. They also differ by products; SPX is different than SPXW on the CBOE. So, you can 't say the book is first in first out. You can be first on one exchange and an option can trade later on another exchange without you being filled. MM's typically quote wider markets in less liquid options. If you place an order that they consider a good buy/sell, they will typically join you on other exchanges.

horrorpages

Most of these services are providing naive output via low-cost data providers. They slap an $80-300/month price tag on their product hoping retailers don't know the difference. There's maybe only a handful (I only know of 2, VolSignals comes to mind) that are using legitimate positioning and the best available CBOE data for SPX/VIX. Expect to pay on the upper end for those services. I'm still skeptical however (from the futures side). When the levels hit, they hit nicely. And, all the GEXers come to its defense. But, they never show us that the majority of this stuff is failure. Even worse, most of the junk I see are "experts" with their post-mortem market analyses for why a certain level responded a certain way based on a certain Greek with a certain statistical value at a certain strike. You'll see contradictions daily. I'd prefer random lines and psychological levels to get the same edge without the mental overload.

duboilburner

This is muddied by the fact few sources actually have accurate dealer gamma exposure. The only source for \*actual\* dealer positioning from CBOE only exists for two products: VIX and SPX. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING else is almost guaranteed to be made up data via the naive model that assumes all calls are sold short to dealers and customers buy all puts for protection. Very inaccurate and borderline useless assumption. So, even for the couple of places that DO have accurate dealer positioning (UnusualWhales' Periscope, VolSignals3D, OptionsDepth, SpotGamma) it is still just information that can help inform your trading, but it is not 100% deterministic. I have found it, with the help of interpretation from someone who was infact an ex-MM, to be useful and I have decided to not take some trades that I would have attempted to risk in the past because it gave enough information to say the bounce I would have bet on likely wasn't going to go far. And it was right. The accurate data can show you where customers feel safer in selling puts or selling calls, making dealers net long those strikes, and it also can give you bounds of the range we're likely to stay in. I've seen a lot of pivot points happen at important levels generated by the data. It gives you handy targets for getting in and out of trades that does often work quite well--whereas without the data, I might be prone to holding on too long and having it go against me. It's still not going to teach you how to trade. You will want to use it in addition to other skills and ability to read the tape, watching what implied vols are doing and maybe even watching correlated assets when trading SPX. It's not an end all be all, especially in this environment where we have an administration that is actively manipulating the market \*and\* insider trading off the manipulation. The guy I learn from did say that summers 2023 and 24, it was like shooting fish in a barrel with the real dealer positioning. But we're not in that environment anymore. Summers with lighter liquidity tend to work very well for these models, but it's a lot less clear when you have an administration manipulating things. So yes, maybe it's not worth paying for the info in this environment, but then again, with that attitude, maybe it's not worth trading at all given the added unpredictability that is having a "human VVIX" for a president.

Illustrious_Rub2975

You’ve got one legitimate point buried under a lot of overclaiming: OI-based “naive GEX” is a crude proxy, and richer participant/open-close data can improve the inference of who is carrying what. Fine. The problem is that you keep treating every step after that as if it automatically follows. Better transaction classification does **not** automatically mean you know the complete economic dealer book. And knowing dealer positioning more accurately does **not** automatically mean the resulting GEX measure has predictive power. And predictive information does **not** automatically mean there is a tradable edge after costs, conditioning and competition. Those are separate empirical claims. You literally said that with the CBOE data you can “compile and track actual market maker positions precisely. So no guessing.” That is much stronger than saying the data is better than naive OI. SPX sits inside a much larger ecosystem: futures, ETFs, futures options, FLEX, OTC exposure, structured products, dispersion, variance exposure and cross-hedging. Better visibility into listed SPX flow can absolutely improve an estimate, but it is not synonymous with observing the dealer’s complete economic risk or future hedge demand. You also seem to oscillate between what GEX supposedly does. At one point you argue it has predictive power for SPX; elsewhere you correctly say it does not give a buy/sell signal or predict a “pin,” but instead describes biases in how the market may move through certain ranges or times. That latter claim is much more defensible. But then test **that** mechanism. Show that your richer GEX estimate adds incremental out-of-sample information about conditional volatility, price response, mean reversion/trend amplification, strike-crossing behaviour, or hedge-flow sensitivity after controlling for the obvious state variables. Simply saying “you’ve only seen naive GEX” is not evidence. The illiquidity exchange makes the inconsistency even clearer. You said: “Why would I look for edge where there is none?” Specifically referring to those illiquid products without obvious hedging mechanisms. Then when challenged, your position became: “There are thousands of pieces of data I don’t look at that ‘may’ contain edge. You can’t look at everything.” Of course you can’t look at everything. Nobody expects you to. But **“I haven’t investigated it” and “there is no edge there” are completely different statements.** And the Mars analogy doesn’t rescue that. Low liquidity does not imply no edge. If anything, weaker participation, poorer price discovery and limited arbitrage capacity can create larger gross inefficiencies. Whether those survive spreads, impact, capacity and sizing constraints is the actual empirical question. That is really the recurring issue throughout your replies, you demand evidence from everyone else, but when it comes to your own preferred framework you repeatedly jump from: **better data → better positioning estimate → meaningful market mechanism → predictive power → tradable edge** without actually demonstrating each link. Maybe the richer GEX data really does contain useful information. I’m completely open to that. But “the real GEX works, you just don’t understand it” is not an argument. Show the incremental predictive value.

MrJohnDoe_R

This is all true for everything except SPX. CBOE provides intraday data fro SPX and categorizes trade by participant so one can rebuild dealer's positions book and calculte greeks using those positions. This works pretty well for 0DTE SPX but everybody have to remember that MM are not only participant on the market and one news can change positions significantly.

IrishJohnnie

The research you cited predates the tagged version of this dataset by a few years. How much did you spend for the data? What is your test methodology to prove that the tagging is not accurate? The CBOE has access to all of the metadata around a trade that we don't.

003E003

ALL the cheap "Gex" services you see are using what is called [Naive GEX](https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+naive+gex&sxsrf=APpeQnsW26fpfxLoUL4KL87i1b0mM43YKw%3A1787540415249). Which means they are using freely available Open Interest data OPRA and then making some assumptions (guessing) about whether market makers are long or short that Open Interest. The assumptions they make are very very very flawed so the resulting data is garbage. Some claim to have a methodology for their guessing but it is also flawed and it is still guessing. But the data is free and the story sounds compelling because there is actual truth and logic to gamma hedging influences. It is just that the data is bad and the details are dumbed down so option noobs think they can understand it. By cheap I mean under $200 a month. A select few companies actually purchase a different data stream for the CBOE (about $20k a month) which tags exactly which customer type (MM, customer, dealer, etc) buys or sells every transaction. With that you can compile and track actual market maker positions (the only ones we care about for gamma hedging) precisely. So no guessing. It is a complex thing to learn the intricacies of. It is not just....here is the call wall, that is resistance. That is not it....at all. If you are interested to learn, start somewhere like this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrkaO4-rtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrkaO4-rtQ) And your comment raises a great point when you say "how I was trying to use it". This data is a tool. The tool works. But every tool doesn't work for every task. A hammer works for a nail but not for a screw. The key to the whole thing is developing a trading strategy which best utilizes this tool. Easier said than done. But just because you have not found the right strategy does NOT mean the tool doesn't work. And just because the tool works doesn't mean it works for every strategy.

Fit_Equal6932

It's funny that you approach everything as a challenge. I will tell you this though that you haven't yet looked at the illiquid tickers which occasionally pick up options volume and don't have any natural hedging mechanism in terms of a futures or an ETF product. The impact from options positions in those sort of tickers can have a meaningful effect, go study it. If anything it seems like you don't understand SP500 ecosystem as well considering the way you are arguing, you are literally taking the most complex product ecosystem that is traded widely in a global market with lots of layers and opacity (things like OTC trades, TRS swaps, FLEX options which only print EOD) and believing that a CBOE provided order flow segmentation can give you meaningful levels is just a load of crap. People using that $300 a month service that you seem to advertise here in a sneaky way is what you claim is meaningful yet the whole market has access to it. Good luck with your beliefs, you clearly don't look at the data or validate any assumptions.

IrishJohnnie

A bunch of this research is obsolete because the CBOE started publishing which market participant is holding the positions in as fast as 1 minute intervals, at least for SPX (see https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary). They also have a new trade-by-trade dataset for some exchanges that is not real time yet https://datashop.cboe.com/enhanced-us-options-trade-by-trade-execution-detail). I that sometimes it is dog instead of its tail probably because we don't know the rest of their portfolio.

Fit_Equal6932

If you are talking about this: [https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary](https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary) Yes then this does provide some extra information that OPRA feed lacks. This is truly meaningful only for SPX since that is a product where CBOE has a monopoly and is the only exchange that trades it therefore they can provide useful position level data. It will be worth a look so thanks for pointing it out but my general approach will still be of healthy skepticism since the SP500 market structure has many layers. This is raw data and one would need to see if any useful metrics can be built on top of this.

Fit_Equal6932

There is no way for you to build the complete dealer book including the 500 underlyings to understand what risk they are carrying. They manage their overall exposure in totality. For you to make a counterpoint present you need some data. CBOE and is happy to sell you data too, doesn’t mean there is any predictive value. Customer type still doesn’t let you get a handle on the open interest. Infact once can try to do this with the extra attributes available in the OPRA feed messages and the order book but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

003E003

Yes your GEX assumptions are simplistic and problematic...... But it is NOT true that we can't do any better. You can... and some services do....pay for the correct data from the CBOE that tells us what customer types buy and sell every transaction. Vol Signals is one company that does this and actually has actually position and gamma data.

vandalizethethief

I think this is more a reaction to Hyperliquid and their 24/7 perpetual futures which currently combine the speed & execution of a centralized exchange with the benefits of defi (transparency & privacy). Hyperliquid did over $220 billion in perp volume in July. One example is oil traders hedging over weekends due to Friday news dumps & the pros noticing that the CL and Brent futures open at perp prices. They pose a huge existential threat to CBOE, NASDAQ, and CME in no rolling contracts, settlement, delivery etc…and the lowest fees around. Market share in futures, options, etc….are starting to show signs of weakness.

Be-ur-best-self

This is insane. What could Trump do? Send the marines to the trading pits at the CBOE?

Breathofdmt

Why would anyone pay you when the API is 80-160 dollars for personal use I actually made one of these dashboards for myself and offered it widely, made it 18 months ago when the AI tools were less capable. Now everyone and their dog has a vibe coded GEX platform and its embarrassing at this point so I keep it just for personal use. Good luck trying to turn a profit and dealing with customer service. You'd be lucky to get 20 bucks a month. I've seen around a dozen pop up in the past 6 months. Unpopular opinion here, obviously, given the responses but I don't think the "naive" GEX is useless, gives you a good overview of the structural levels in the market, especially if you look at stocks, ETFs, etc. Good for developing targets and pivots too. I use it for futures though and it's not a standalone edge, just a worthwhile way to find levels. The CBOE C2 data is just SPX and VIX. Again, competitive space now since the barriers to entry are lower and you're competing in the most efficient market in the world. Now, if you could prove your edge with it and that's part of the service, people might pay attention but I doubt that's why you're here.

New_Emergency_5547

Good question. The #1 reason is **rapid "what-if" hypothetical stress-testing** without friction: 1. **Zero Login / Paywall Friction:** Most visualizers either lock 4-legged strategies behind monthly subscriptions, force account signups, or have sluggish interfaces with delayed data. 2. **Hypothetical Parameter Sandboxing:** Live quote tools tether you to current market bids/asks. A sandbox lets you model pure theoretical scenarios before market open — e.g., *"If I enter a 45 DTE Iron Condor and IV drops from 60% to 35% while the stock tests my short call wing in 14 days, what does my exact P&L curve look like?"* 3. **Instant Leg Tweaking:** You can override IV or days independently on individual legs to model earnings crush or volatility skew. That said, connecting a free delayed stock/option chain lookup API (like Polygon/CBOE) is on the roadmap so users can auto-populate live tickers as well as sandbox them manually.

MrJohnDoe_R

>"We use the standard convention: dealers are treated as **long calls, short puts** against customer flow" This assumption is simply wrong. If customer has spread it has both long and short position at the time. Without knowledge who helds the position one cannot reconstruct Dealer-positioning. It's just Open Intereset heatmap. The only exchange that reliably tags position data is CBOE for SPX. That's the reasons why paid services provide Dealer-positioning and gamma exposure for SPX only.