Every strategy, in one place

A Long Call is the purchase of a call option, giving the holder the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying at the strike. The loss is cap…

A Long Put is the purchase of a put option, giving the holder the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying at the strike. The loss is capp…

A Married Put is the simultaneous purchase of the underlying and a protective put on it, bought together as one planned position. The put caps the do…

A Protective Put is a put bought against an underlying already held, to insure existing holdings against a fall. The put caps the downside at its str…

A Synthetic Long Call is a long position in the underlying combined with a long at-the-money put, a pairing whose payoff matches an ordinary long cal…

A Synthetic Long Put is a short position in the underlying combined with a long at-the-money call, a pairing whose payoff matches an ordinary long pu…

Covered Call is a long position in the underlying with a call sold against it: the premium lowers the cost of the holding and caps its upside at the …

Cash-Secured Put is a short put backed by enough cash to buy the underlying at the strike if assigned: you collect a premium for accepting the obliga…

Naked Put is a short put held on margin rather than against reserved cash: the payoff is identical to a cash-secured put, but because only margin is …

Naked Call is a short call with no underlying and no long call above it: the premium is the entire reward, while the loss is theoretically unlimited …

Short Straddle sells a call and a put at the same strike, collecting both premiums to profit if the underlying barely moves: the combined credit is t…

Short Strangle sells an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put, collecting both premiums to profit if the underlying stays between the str…

A Bull Call Spread buys a lower-strike call and sells a higher-strike call of the same expiry for a net debit, giving a moderately bullish position w…

A Bear Put Spread buys a higher-strike put and sells a lower-strike put of the same expiry for a net debit, a moderately bearish position whose maxim…

A Bull Put Spread sells a higher-strike put and buys a lower-strike put of the same expiry for a net credit, a moderately bullish position that keeps…

A Bear Call Spread sells a lower-strike call and buys a higher-strike call of the same expiry for a net credit, a moderately bearish position that ke…

A Call Ratio Spread buys one call and sells two higher-strike calls of the same expiry, usually for a net credit; because it is net short one call, t…

A Put Ratio Spread buys one put and sells two lower-strike puts of the same expiry, usually for a net credit; because it is net short one put, the wo…

A Call Ratio Backspread sells one lower-strike call and buys two higher-strike calls of the same expiry; being net long one call, its risk is defined…

A Calendar Spread sells a near-dated option and buys a longer-dated option at the same strike for a net debit, profiting when time decays the short l…

A Diagonal Spread sells a near-dated option and buys a longer-dated option at a different strike, combining the time-decay edge of a calendar with th…

A Vertical Spread combines a long and a short option of the same type and expiry but different strikes; the shared expiry and the strike width togeth…

A Horizontal Spread, the taxonomic name for a calendar, pairs two options of the same strike and type whose expiries differ along the time axis of th…

An Iron Condor is a defined-risk neutral strategy that sells an out-of-the-money put spread and an out-of-the-money call spread, collecting a net cre…

An Iron Butterfly is a defined-risk neutral strategy that sells an at-the-money put and call on one strike and buys wings above and below, collecting…

A Long Butterfly is a defined-risk neutral strategy of three equally spaced call strikes — buy one lower, sell two middle, buy one higher — for a sma…

A Short Butterfly is a defined-risk, three-strike call strategy that collects a small credit kept only if the underlying finishes away from the middl…

A Long Condor is a defined-risk neutral strategy built from four call strikes for a debit, paying a flat maximum across the range between its two inn…

A Short Condor is a defined-risk strategy of four call strikes that collects a small credit kept only if the underlying finishes outside the range, a…

A Christmas Tree Spread is a defined-risk, mildly bullish strategy built from calls in a 1×3×2 ratio — buy one lower, sell three middle, buy two high…

A Box Spread combines a bull call spread and a bear put spread on the same two strikes so the payoff is fixed at the strike distance whatever the und…

A Jade Lizard is a neutral-to-bullish strategy that sells an out-of-the-money put and an out-of-the-money call spread, structured so the total credit…

A Broken Wing Butterfly is a defined-risk butterfly with deliberately unequal wing widths, skewed so the structure costs almost nothing and the loss …

Long Straddle buys an at-the-money call and an at-the-money put on the same strike and expiry, so it profits from a large move in either direction, a…

Long Strangle buys an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put, so it costs less than a straddle but needs a larger move to break even and l…

Reverse Iron Condor is a four-leg long-volatility structure — an iron condor with every leg reversed — that pays a capped profit when the underlying …

Long Calendar Spread sells a near-dated option and buys a far-dated option at the same strike, profiting from the faster decay of the near leg while …

Double Calendar Spread places two calendars at different strikes — one below spot, one above — widening the single calendar's tent into a profit plat…

Trend Following is a futures approach that assumes returns are autocorrelated — that a move already underway is more likely to continue than to rever…

Breakout Trading is a futures approach that assumes volatility clusters — that a period of contraction is followed by expansion — so it takes a posit…

Pullback Trading is a futures approach that assumes an established trend persists through a temporary counter-move, so it enters in the trend's direc…

Mean Reversion is a futures approach that assumes returns are negatively autocorrelated — that a market stretched away from its average tends to snap…

Momentum Trading is a futures approach that buys instruments with strong recent returns and often shorts weak ones, betting that relative performance…

Range Trading is a futures approach that assumes a market stays within an identified band, so it buys near the floor and sells near the ceiling — win…

Gap Trading is a futures approach that positions around an opening gap, betting either that price fills back toward the prior close or continues in t…

Pair Trading is a futures approach that goes long one instrument and short a correlated other, aiming to profit from the spread between them revertin…

Weekly Expiry refers to index option contracts that expire within days rather than a month, carrying less total time value but much higher theta and …

Monthly Expiry refers to index and stock option and futures contracts that expire at month-end, carrying more total time value, slower per-day decay,…

Zero Days to Expiry concepts describe the day a contract expires, when at-the-money gamma reaches its maximum and delta becomes a step function, so a…

Expiry Day Neutral Approaches are neutral option structures placed near the settlement zone on expiry, where the theta collected is a fraction of a m…

Expiry Day Volatility concepts describe how realised and implied volatility behave on the final day — measured intraday volatility often rising into …

Theta Harvest concepts describe collecting option time decay through short-premium positions, and the honest accounting behind it — theta is not inco…