For the love of trading

This study examines the Black-Scholes-Merton model's flexibility in calculating expected value. We explore how this formula allows us to calculate probabilities and expected values in multiple ways, and we’ll compare the different methods to show why Option Alpha uses historical volatility.

Option Alpha traders are eligible for a free Pro+ account when you connect a qualified TradeStation account.

We share the three EV calculations you can use with the information available in any brokerage platform and compare the methods to determine their accuracy.

We analyzed 130k Trade Ideas positions to visually compare each trade's realized P/L to its Expected Value at trade entry.

Trade Ideas now includes a filter option leg open interest. Plus, you can also filter to see the most popular Trade Ideas in the community.

Trade Ideas ‘Presets’ lets you save one or more filters to quickly view all potential trading opportunities with your favorite settings.

We analyzed 230k 0DTE options trades to determine what successful Option Alpha traders are doing and the key metrics that influenced profitable strategy setups.

Analyze your trading performance and filter live or paper results by strategy type, ticker symbol, account, bot, and tags for in-depth portfolio analysis.

Export your bot data to easily analyze and compare closed position performance history.

A new calendar displays key dates and market events to give you all the essential information you need before entering a trade.

We are very excited to spotlight one of the most inquisitive and fearlessly engaging members in the Option Alpha Community, Pen.

Top Strategies makes it easier than ever to find the best-performing option trading setups using historical data from the Option Alpha community.

Option Alpha's newest platform release introduces Trade Ideas 2.0, including autotrading, EV and Alpha calculations, top strategies, a bot leaderboard, and more!

Use Trade Ideas to analyze the entire database of potential trades and sort, rank, and autotrade the best available position based on your defined criteria.

You can now add notes to any bot to include ideas, updated versions, data, research, links, images, and more. Stay organized and track your strategy insights.

Let you bots scan a list of ticker symbols and find the best trade idea across up to 10 different symbols.

With the addition of EV and Alpha, we've expanded Exit Option so you now have more ways to manage your positions.

Trade Ideas 2.0 revolutionizes the way you find potential trading opportunities using math and probabilities. Plus, you can now autotrade using Trade Ideas.

You can now move positions between any two bots that are connected to the same Option Alpha account so you can manage your portfolio with more control and flexibility.

There's a new leaderboard that tracks the top performing bots shared in the Option Alpha community to help you discover new ideas and strategies.

We've enhanced the Open Position screen to include Expected Value (EV), Alpha, and more probabilities.

We are very excited to spotlight one of the kindest, selfless, and most helpful autotraders in the Option Alpha Community, Bob Gould.

We are thrilled to spotlight Charles, an engineer who embraces education, strategy development, and selflessly sharing ideas with the Option Alpha Community.

Using pre-trade opportunity filters is always a best practice. This update gives you an easier format to add entry and position criteria for more efficiency and reduced friction in your automations.

Exit options now include trailing stops for the most advanced automated position management available.

Say hello to a more intuitive, easier to use automation editor with color coded actions and collapsible decision blocks.

Two new decision recipes give you added control when targeting specific dates, including FOMC meetings and CPI releases.

2023's second major platform release includes 1-minute trailing stops, a reimagined automation editor, SmartPricing upgrades, Trade Ideas improvements, and more.

New SmartPricing settings empower you to combat wide bid/ask spreads and abnormal price fluctuations.

Trade Ideas now include additional probability and symbol filters to help you customize your search criteria to find exactly what you're looking for.

We are so grateful and thrilled to be able to spotlight one of the most prolific bot builders and tireless people we know, Reuben Helmuth.

VXX and UVXY are now available for autotrading. These volatility ETFs provide exposure to the VIX short-term futures index.

Learn how you can get a free Option Alpha Pro+ account when connecting your qualified Tradier Brokerage account.

The first major platform release of the year is here! Check out all the updates, including the all-new Trade Ideas.

Trade Ideas calculate probabilities for millions of potential options positions using live market data so you can make smarter trades.

Create Presets for your Exit Options to quickly reuse custom settings for long and short option positions.

The latest upgrade to Exit Options now supports custom SmartPricing settings for each scenario, plus we added the ability to send Market Orders if you choose.

In-app help docs and the new 'Get Started' checklist will guide you around Option Alpha to find everything you need to know as an autotrader.

The January 2023 platform release includes new stats and charts to give you upgraded visual tools when monitoring your bots’ activity and key metrics.

The latest update includes two new decision recipes for targeting past earnings dates.

How has market volatility impacted intraday mean reversion and trend following strategies? We analyzed the first trading hour in SPY to understand intraday mean reversion vs. trend following signals.

You now have expanded criteria for researching option strategies so you can customize your ideas with more detail.

Every position now includes an interactive real-time option payoff diagram that uses live pricing to update key metrics and probabilities, so there's no guesswork on your position's current status.

The backtester now includes expanded settings so you have even more precision when testing your options strategies.

New, interconnected bot logs show you exactly what's happening in your bots and automations. Right where you need them.

Manual trading is getting a huge upgrade. We reimagined the user experience of manual trading to solve problems and simplify your life.

Introducing faster position management! Pre-set your exit options when opening a position and let automation manage your position every minute.

We analyzed over 25,000 0DTE option positions traded in the autotrading platform to assess what worked and how traders set up short-term trading strategies.

Announcing $0 commission-free trading for Option Alpha members using TradeStation in the autotrading platform.

Option Alpha announces $0 commission-free trading through our exclusive agreement with Tradier Brokerage.

The wheel strategy is a popular options strategy investors can use to generate income selling options and potentially owning stock. Learn how to trade the options wheel strategy.

A step-by-step guide to help you manage position assignments with bots.

Learn how to automate a strategy that sells credit spreads when the MACD indicator signals an overbought or oversold condition.

Creating a bot has never been easier! The new bot wizard helps you go from idea to automated strategy in a few simple steps.

Option Alpha’s new ‘Backtest to Bot’ feature lets you instantly create an automated trading strategy from any backtest in our database.

Unlock new autotrading opportunities with these two decision recipes that evaluate a symbol's open, high, low, or closing price using a specific look-back period.

Learn how to build an automated Bollinger Band bot using debit and credit spreads to trade breakouts.

Tradier is now available for live trading access! Plus, when you connect your account, you'll enjoy exclusive pricing on all trades.

We studied over 20,000 trades to measure the average time between return extremes over the life of a trade. From all that data and research, see what stands out.

Bullish on AAPL stock? Use Option Alpha to backtest three bullish strategies and compare the results, or search a database of AAPL options strategies.

We’ve expanded the way you can select strike prices. There are now four options for choosing a strike price, so you always have pinpoint accuracy and control of your positions.

Easily discover and explore targeted Community conversations on specific topics in four main categories.

We’ve improved the bot dashboard significantly in the latest platform update. The equity P/L graph is enhanced so you can now view more detailed bot performance stats. Plus, you can edit your closed positions and order history.

Crowdsource options backtests like never before. Share strategies, upvote performance results, and comment on backtests in the Community.

Two new updates improve sequencing so you have more control. Bots now have more intelligent decision timing when looping symbols and running automations.

Intelligently manage your positions with this new decision recipe that evaluates return on risk to exit positions at defined targets.

Edit automation paths with negated decisions to save time and increase flexibility.

We’ve upgraded standard deviation properties so you can use decimal precision for pinpoint accuracy.

Now you can split automation decisions using a recipe to evaluate if the underlying ticker symbol is a stock or an ETF.

You can now compare multiple backtests side-by-side to see exactly how they stack up to each other for unparalleled strategy development.

With this platform update, you have even more control of your bots' event automations. You can now automatically check in on your automations and positions at the beginning and end of every trading day.

The Option Alpha backtester has improved every aspect with the newest update. You now have expanded research tools to discover your perfect options strategy.

Investors expect interest rates to rise this year. We studied four similar environments to deliver the context you need for today’s market.

20 years of data suggests this bull market may not be over yet, and the positive momentum could continue into the new year.

We’ve made it incredibly easy for you to group all your automations inside your library. Discover how folders will help you organize your portfolio.

Now you can create, add, and remove bot and position tags to take your automations to a whole new level.

Four new decision recipes help you reference a bot’s trade history and active orders. Find out what this means for you and your bots!

We are sending invites to traders on the Waitlist! Share the news, get to the front of the line, and start autotrading!

Check out these new updates that are all about improving your experience.

Bot errors are divided into two categories to help you identify soft and fatal errors and troubleshoot their impact on your portfolio.

The automations library now gives you more organization and customization in your portfolio.

Discover how to automate a popular swing trading strategy that opens bullish and bearish credit spreads based on RSI value.

Bot switches make your automations more flexible by allowing you to turn parts of an automation on or off.

You can loop through symbols to create and scan a watchlist of tickers inside your bots. Learn how this powerful feature lets you apply a single strategy to multiple ticker symbols.

SmartStops are not your traditional trailing stop. SmartStops are a proprietary feature that can change the way you exit positions. Learn how SmartStops can be a game-changer for your portfolio.

You can now specify market days or calendar days in an automation. This new feature gives you pinpoint accuracy and flexibility when making decisions.

You can now import positions from your brokerage account into Option Alpha for your bots to manage!

Create and customize in-app notifications to alert you of specific market and bot activity in real-time.

Reusable automations are a powerful tool that enables you to use a single automation across multiple bots simultaneously.

Using our Backtester, we explored the historical performance of SPY put credit spreads to help determine the entry and exit criteria that best fit your trading objectives.

TradeStation is now available for live trading access! Plus, when you connect your account, you'll enjoy exclusive pricing on all trades.

Leverage the power of bots to automate your strategies, scan for trading opportunities based on multiple market conditions, and open new positions when your criteria are met.

Automate your trend following strategy with these two decision recipes that reference multiple moving averages when filtering opportunities.

VIX and SPX tail risk pricing is astronomically high compared to before the pandemic. What has happened to the price of downside protection? Find out here.

See how this VIX hedging strategy performed during the Pandemic Crash and learn how portfolio hedging can protect against black swan events.

Collaborating on your trading strategy has never been easier. You can now share automations in the Community, save an automation to your library, modify its decisions, and instantly add it to a bot of your choice.

Test your bot’s automations directly inside the automation editor to see how your logic performs in live market conditions.

Do you want to avoid trading when certain stocks are in a downtrend? Use a simple moving average decision recipe to filter for new position opportunities.

Learn when you should use and/or functionality to group multiple decisions together, and when you should separate and analyze individual criteria before moving through an automation.

Are you getting better at investing? Find out how to challenge your status quo and improve your investment process.

Trade Ideas now includes a filter option leg open interest. Plus, you can also filter to see the most popular Trade Ideas in the community.

Trade Ideas ‘Presets’ lets you save one or more filters to quickly view all potential trading opportunities with your favorite settings.

Analyze your trading performance and filter live or paper results by strategy type, ticker symbol, account, bot, and tags for in-depth portfolio analysis.

Export your bot data to easily analyze and compare closed position performance history.

A new calendar displays key dates and market events to give you all the essential information you need before entering a trade.

Top Strategies makes it easier than ever to find the best-performing option trading setups using historical data from the Option Alpha community.

Use Trade Ideas to analyze the entire database of potential trades and sort, rank, and autotrade the best available position based on your defined criteria.

You can now add notes to any bot to include ideas, updated versions, data, research, links, images, and more. Stay organized and track your strategy insights.

Let you bots scan a list of ticker symbols and find the best trade idea across up to 10 different symbols.

With the addition of EV and Alpha, we've expanded Exit Option so you now have more ways to manage your positions.

Trade Ideas 2.0 revolutionizes the way you find potential trading opportunities using math and probabilities. Plus, you can now autotrade using Trade Ideas.

You can now move positions between any two bots that are connected to the same Option Alpha account so you can manage your portfolio with more control and flexibility.

There's a new leaderboard that tracks the top performing bots shared in the Option Alpha community to help you discover new ideas and strategies.

We've enhanced the Open Position screen to include Expected Value (EV), Alpha, and more probabilities.

Using pre-trade opportunity filters is always a best practice. This update gives you an easier format to add entry and position criteria for more efficiency and reduced friction in your automations.

Exit options now include trailing stops for the most advanced automated position management available.

Say hello to a more intuitive, easier to use automation editor with color coded actions and collapsible decision blocks.

Two new decision recipes give you added control when targeting specific dates, including FOMC meetings and CPI releases.

New SmartPricing settings empower you to combat wide bid/ask spreads and abnormal price fluctuations.

Trade Ideas now include additional probability and symbol filters to help you customize your search criteria to find exactly what you're looking for.

VXX and UVXY are now available for autotrading. These volatility ETFs provide exposure to the VIX short-term futures index.

Trade Ideas calculate probabilities for millions of potential options positions using live market data so you can make smarter trades.

Create Presets for your Exit Options to quickly reuse custom settings for long and short option positions.

The latest upgrade to Exit Options now supports custom SmartPricing settings for each scenario, plus we added the ability to send Market Orders if you choose.

In-app help docs and the new 'Get Started' checklist will guide you around Option Alpha to find everything you need to know as an autotrader.

The January 2023 platform release includes new stats and charts to give you upgraded visual tools when monitoring your bots’ activity and key metrics.

The latest update includes two new decision recipes for targeting past earnings dates.

You now have expanded criteria for researching option strategies so you can customize your ideas with more detail.

Every position now includes an interactive real-time option payoff diagram that uses live pricing to update key metrics and probabilities, so there's no guesswork on your position's current status.

The backtester now includes expanded settings so you have even more precision when testing your options strategies.

New, interconnected bot logs show you exactly what's happening in your bots and automations. Right where you need them.

Manual trading is getting a huge upgrade. We reimagined the user experience of manual trading to solve problems and simplify your life.

Introducing faster position management! Pre-set your exit options when opening a position and let automation manage your position every minute.

Creating a bot has never been easier! The new bot wizard helps you go from idea to automated strategy in a few simple steps.

Option Alpha’s new ‘Backtest to Bot’ feature lets you instantly create an automated trading strategy from any backtest in our database.

Unlock new autotrading opportunities with these two decision recipes that evaluate a symbol's open, high, low, or closing price using a specific look-back period.

We’ve expanded the way you can select strike prices. There are now four options for choosing a strike price, so you always have pinpoint accuracy and control of your positions.

Easily discover and explore targeted Community conversations on specific topics in four main categories.

We’ve improved the bot dashboard significantly in the latest platform update. The equity P/L graph is enhanced so you can now view more detailed bot performance stats. Plus, you can edit your closed positions and order history.

Crowdsource options backtests like never before. Share strategies, upvote performance results, and comment on backtests in the Community.

Two new updates improve sequencing so you have more control. Bots now have more intelligent decision timing when looping symbols and running automations.

Intelligently manage your positions with this new decision recipe that evaluates return on risk to exit positions at defined targets.

Edit automation paths with negated decisions to save time and increase flexibility.

We’ve upgraded standard deviation properties so you can use decimal precision for pinpoint accuracy.

Now you can split automation decisions using a recipe to evaluate if the underlying ticker symbol is a stock or an ETF.

You can now compare multiple backtests side-by-side to see exactly how they stack up to each other for unparalleled strategy development.

With this platform update, you have even more control of your bots' event automations. You can now automatically check in on your automations and positions at the beginning and end of every trading day.

The Option Alpha backtester has improved every aspect with the newest update. You now have expanded research tools to discover your perfect options strategy.

Now you can create, add, and remove bot and position tags to take your automations to a whole new level.

Four new decision recipes help you reference a bot’s trade history and active orders. Find out what this means for you and your bots!

Check out these new updates that are all about improving your experience.

Bot errors are divided into two categories to help you identify soft and fatal errors and troubleshoot their impact on your portfolio.

The automations library now gives you more organization and customization in your portfolio.

Bot switches make your automations more flexible by allowing you to turn parts of an automation on or off.

You can loop through symbols to create and scan a watchlist of tickers inside your bots. Learn how this powerful feature lets you apply a single strategy to multiple ticker symbols.

You can now specify market days or calendar days in an automation. This new feature gives you pinpoint accuracy and flexibility when making decisions.

You can now import positions from your brokerage account into Option Alpha for your bots to manage!

The Automation Editor just got a lot better. Now you can customize your automations with improved “choose your path” flexibility.

New bot-level decisions give you more capital and position flexibility when building bots.

Learn how the strike price selection process is enhanced with our new platform update. It’s never been easier to choose the right contract!

New scanner and monitor automation ordering gives you even more customization options for your bots. Check it out!

We've added new platform features to enhance your account management, organization, and portfolio visibility. Check it out!

Order controls got a major upgrade in our latest platform update. Keep reading to learn about all the new improvements!

SmartPricing is Option Alpha’s proprietary technology that uses timed intervals to dynamically adjust pricing to optimize your entries and exits.

The new bot template versioning update keeps your freshest ideas in the spotlight.

This study examines the Black-Scholes-Merton model's flexibility in calculating expected value. We explore how this formula allows us to calculate probabilities and expected values in multiple ways, and we’ll compare the different methods to show why Option Alpha uses historical volatility.

We share the three EV calculations you can use with the information available in any brokerage platform and compare the methods to determine their accuracy.

We analyzed 130k Trade Ideas positions to visually compare each trade's realized P/L to its Expected Value at trade entry.

We analyzed 230k 0DTE options trades to determine what successful Option Alpha traders are doing and the key metrics that influenced profitable strategy setups.

How has market volatility impacted intraday mean reversion and trend following strategies? We analyzed the first trading hour in SPY to understand intraday mean reversion vs. trend following signals.

We analyzed over 25,000 0DTE option positions traded in the autotrading platform to assess what worked and how traders set up short-term trading strategies.

We studied over 20,000 trades to measure the average time between return extremes over the life of a trade. From all that data and research, see what stands out.

Bullish on AAPL stock? Use Option Alpha to backtest three bullish strategies and compare the results, or search a database of AAPL options strategies.

Investors expect interest rates to rise this year. We studied four similar environments to deliver the context you need for today’s market.

20 years of data suggests this bull market may not be over yet, and the positive momentum could continue into the new year.

Using our Backtester, we explored the historical performance of SPY put credit spreads to help determine the entry and exit criteria that best fit your trading objectives.

VIX and SPX tail risk pricing is astronomically high compared to before the pandemic. What has happened to the price of downside protection? Find out here.

We answer five key research questions about bid-ask spread volatility and explain how these answers can threaten or inform your trading decisions.

Learn how bid-ask spread anomalies bring unique risks and opportunities in options trading with this SPY case study.

What is the "personality" of your favorite ticker? Do you know what the bid-ask spread of the specific underlyings you trade should resemble? Learn about bid-ask spread expectations here.

This case study examines the intraday price volatility of a TLT iron condor to illustrate the forces at play beyond the options Greeks affecting a position's bid-ask spread.

Option Alpha traders are eligible for a free Pro+ account when you connect a qualified TradeStation account.

Option Alpha's newest platform release introduces Trade Ideas 2.0, including autotrading, EV and Alpha calculations, top strategies, a bot leaderboard, and more!

2023's second major platform release includes 1-minute trailing stops, a reimagined automation editor, SmartPricing upgrades, Trade Ideas improvements, and more.

Learn how you can get a free Option Alpha Pro+ account when connecting your qualified Tradier Brokerage account.

The first major platform release of the year is here! Check out all the updates, including the all-new Trade Ideas.

Announcing $0 commission-free trading for Option Alpha members using TradeStation in the autotrading platform.

Option Alpha announces $0 commission-free trading through our exclusive agreement with Tradier Brokerage.

Tradier is now available for live trading access! Plus, when you connect your account, you'll enjoy exclusive pricing on all trades.

We are sending invites to traders on the Waitlist! Share the news, get to the front of the line, and start autotrading!

TradeStation is now available for live trading access! Plus, when you connect your account, you'll enjoy exclusive pricing on all trades.