Before You Read

Maimai

It's not the tail wagging the dog — it is the dog.

Options are not the tail wagging the dog. Options are the dog.

— Cem Karsan, options volatility trader

It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

— George Soros

This book is primarily about SPX 0DTE. But if you trade options—whether on broad-market indices or individual stocks—you may still find it useful.

You know what Calls and Puts are. You have called the direction correctly before, yet still failed to hold on to the profit.

You probably know that feeling: the market moved exactly as expected, you bought the right Call, and then most of the profit disappeared—or you made nothing at all.

That is not simply bad luck. Some parts of the picture were still missing.

What This Book Is

Two things, written into one book:

1. A shift in thinking—from “Will the market rise or fall today?” to “What kind of market is this today, and does the structure justify taking a view?”
2. A personal trading journal—what I watch before the open, how I read GEX, why I often choose a Delta between 0.45 and 0.55, why I avoid the first five minutes, and how I scale out. These are my actual decision-making habits, not theory dressed up as practice.

I have also included reviews of seven real trading days. Use the data, structure, and execution details where they help; do not force them where they do not. Markets change, and so do I.

This is the Buyer Edition. It deals only with SPX options expiring the same day—0DTE—and the simplest long-premium trades: buying a single Long Call or Long Put, with no complex combinations. The main text begins with Chapter 1: first the story, then the map, then the trade reviews.

A New Way to See the Market

What kind of market is this today? Does the structure justify a trade? Why can the direction be right while the trade still loses? We will walk through seven real trading days from beginning to end.

Markets change, and so do I. Use what fits; leave what does not.

Options can expire worthless. The figures and habits in this book come from my own trading and historical market conditions, and they will evolve as the market changes. This is a record of trade reviews, not investment advice. See “Disclaimer and High-Risk Warning” in the appendix for the full notice.