Robert Cernera

Senior Engineer

About

Rob joined Option Alpha in 2018 after being one of the first beta users of the original Alta5 platform. Prior to Option Alpha, Rob was an Interactive Operator and incident response specialist at the National Security Agency. He holds an MS in Cyber Operations & Electronic Warfare from the Air Force Institute of Technology. When he's not bot trading, Rob enjoys hanging out with his wife and son.

Education

BS in Computer Science, Stockton University, School of Business

MS in Cyber Operations, Air Force Institute of Technology, School of Engineering & Management

References

Experience

What’s New in Option Alpha: April 2024 Release

April's release includes Scanner updates, new Trade Idea filters, an upgraded event calendar, improved bot watchlist filters, bot groups, new decisions, and more.

Option Alpha March 2024 Release

The newest platform release features OA Labs with earnings stats and price forecasting, plus new decision recipes, bot updates and more.

Option Alpha February 2024 Release

The new platform release includes personalized and shareable watchlists, custom bot symbols, bot decision stats, conditional automation actions, new scanner scheduling options, updated UI, and more.

Research Insights

Probability Theory: How Many Trades Does it Take to be Successful?

Our newest research analyzes the accuracy of probabilities across varying sample sizes to help options traders better understand how probability theory impacts success.

Research Insights

Trade Ideas Performance: Analyzing Option Probabilities & DTE

We analyzed more than 1.7mil Trade Ideas across various days to expiration in November 2023's volatile market to uncover key insights about the performance of Expected Value and Alpha.

United Petition to CBOE to Lower SPX Option Minimum Bid Increments

Join the options trading community in advocating for a change in the minimum SPX options bid increments from $0.05 to $0.01.

Research Insights

Beyond Entry: Addressing the “Moment in Time” Problem in Option Profit Probabilities

We explore if options probabilities remain predictive throughout a trade's duration to determine if probabilities are always valid, no matter the moment in time they're calculated.

Congrats on $1 Billion in Live Trades

We’re pleased to announce that together we have crossed a huge milestone in live options trades.

Research Insights

Evaluating Alpha: The Anticipated Return on Risk per Trade

Our newest research blog explores Alpha, which measures return on risk using Expected Value. We analyzed 960k trades on 155 tickers to determine Alpha’s accuracy.

Research Insights

Black-Scholes Model: Why Option Alpha Uses Historical Volatility to Calculate EV

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.

Research Insights

How to Calculate Expected Value: Simple EV, Simple-Partial EV, and Real EV

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.

Research Insights

Trade Ideas Probability & Performance: Expected Value vs. Realized P/L

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

Research Insights

0DTE Options: Strategy Insights from the Top Performing Trades

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

Research Insights

0DTE Options Strategies: Insights from 25k Trades

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.

Research Insights

Bid-Ask Spread Anomalies: 5 Questions Answered

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

Research Insights

Bid-Ask Spread Expectations

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.

Research Insights

Bid-Ask Spread Anomalies: Risk and Opportunity

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

Research Insights

Bid-Ask Spread Volatility Explained

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.

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