In this episode of the Option Alpha podcast, Kirk sits down with his business partner and fellow founder, Jack Slocum, to share the full story behind Jack’s journey as a trader, developer, and entrepreneur. Jack talks about how he first turned to options trading to generate extra income for his family, how his early experiences “crashed and burned,” and why he has spent years since then learning as much as possible about markets and risk. Tune in now! How Jack First Got Into Options Tr...
As an options trader, how closely should you be watching gamma and gamma exposure (GEX)? This episode will help you better understand gamma, interpret volatility, recognize inflection points, and build more context-aware strategies. Kirk sits down with Mat Cashman from the OIC to discuss gamma, explore how market makers hedge their positions, and why 0DTE options are so “gamma-rich.” Mat explains why hedging dynamics can create sharp market moves and how concepts like charm and convexit...
Gamma is one of the most misunderstood yet powerful forces driving options markets. In this episode, Kirk sits down with Lex from Tradier to break down gamma exposure (GEX) — what it is, why it matters, and how it quietly shapes market movement. Together, they unpack how professional traders use gamma to stay delta-neutral, manage risk, and interpret shifting liquidity, while retail traders can use it to better understand price behavior and volatility. Lex explains the difference betwee...
Welcome to the Top Traders interview series, where we hear from Option Alpha community members who have delivered strong results over a meaningful number of trades. In this kickoff episode, FK breaks down his disciplined, probability-driven options trading strategies. We'll explore FK’s approach to selling premium with defined risk, sizing positions conservatively, and running a dual-track portfolio that balances longer-term spreads (marathons) with 0DTE trading (sprints) for consistent...
In this comeback episode, I’ll catch you up on the biggest updates inside Option Alpha, the major shifts in today’s options market (hello, 0DTE), and what to expect from the show going forward. The options landscape has changed dramatically in the past year. From 0DTE dominating SPX volumes to a flood of new retail traders, the environment today looks nothing like when this show last aired. This reboot of the OA podcast recaps the biggest trends shaping options right now, explores the m...
We're joined by Adam Cohn, Vice President and Head of Trading Operations at TradeStation, an award-winning trading platform known for its comprehensive trading tools, advanced charting capabilities, and extensive market analysis features. Adam brings a wealth of experience, not just from his role at TradeStation but also from his extensive background in options trading in the Chicago pits and as a market maker. His deep understanding of market structure and dedication to best execution...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show232 Navigating options expiration is a critical skill for traders, especially with the rise of daily expirations. This week’s podcast explores the top 7 automated tips and tricks you can use inside Option Alpha to set up your portfolio for better options expiration management. See all 7 tips here Adjust exit options as you near expirationCheck the extrinsic value of your positions/legsCheck the probability of short legs being ITMDon’t use market orders...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show231 This week we explore the latest and most pressing challenges emerging for investors who have embraced autotrading. As automation revolutionizes the financial markets, traders find themselves navigating uncharted psychological territory. From trusting bots and algorithms, coping with reduced decision-making control, and the novel complexities of autotrading that demand a new style of adaptation and resilience. With help from our team, I’ll peel b...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show230 This week I explore a deep and philosophical viewpoint into the world of automated trading and its inevitable rise for investors. I explore the evolutionary nature of human decision-making and its limitations in complex financial markets by examining cognitive biases and their impact on manual trading. I’ll also discuss the technological advancements driving this shift, risk management in autotrading, and the future trends and challenges in this...
AI is the hot new buzzword these days, sparked by the release of ChatGPT a few months ago. Since then, it seems everyone has used OpenAI’s software in fascinating (and sometimes scary) ways. So, I jumped into ChatGPT and asked it to come up with the top questions that new and advanced traders ask about options trading. This week's podcast explores the 15 questions - and answers - that options trades want to know. See all 15 answers here What are options and how do they work?How much ...
How long does it take a stock to get back to even after a large daily move down? And does the magnitude impact how long it takes the position to recover the loss? We’ve all been in losing trades and wondered if we should hang on to the position for a little longer or cut it loose. So, to help answer the question, we studied the short-term performance of stocks and ETFs after different daily loss totals. The study analyzed 324 assets over a 20-year period. We calculated the 5-day returns fol...
Stocks have been described as a rubber band, and we often assume they will snap back and revert when prices become overextended. So, we wanted to know: How likely is a security to continue or reverse its momentum above and below major moving averages in short, medium, and long-term timeframes? And does the security’s proximity to a moving average impact its performance? We researched 20 years of data on 286 symbols, using short, mid, and long-term trends to analyze the ticker’s 30-day retu...
"The trend is your friend." It’s a popular saying amongst traders, and we hear it all the time. But is there validity in the statement? We backtested directional option selling strategies with a long-term trend filter to see if there is a significant impact on performance. We used Option Alpha's backtester to review the data for SPY, GLD, and TLT short put spreads and short call spreads. Short put spread tests included a filter to only enter trades above the 200-day moving average. Sho...
This week we take a look at the performance of the Monthly Iron Condors ($3k Portfolio) bot template. You might recall that we previously did a deep dive on this template back on Show 214, walking through the strategy setup, the scanner and monitor automation setups, etc. But now that we’ve had it running for a little over a year, we thought it would be help to take a look at how it has weathered this year’s market volatility and explore possible ways to adjust or improve its performance in t...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show224 Option spreads are a simple and flexible, yet powerful strategy for traders. And while spread strategies come in many forms, shapes, structures, and durations, some core elements are present in spread trading generally that new traders should pay attention to. On this week's show, we'll once again slow things down a bit and focus on understanding what option spreads are and how to trade spreads in your portfolio.
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show223 What if you could build an automated strategy that navigates all market conditions? And while we know there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we believe you can design a bot strategy that assesses the market trend and proactively adapts to current conditions. This "trader's dream" finally manifested itself in a bot template that become the collective “brainchild” of the amazing Community of traders right here at Option Alpha! The Hexabot, as it's n...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show222 Option strike prices are an absolutely critical concept to master if you're going to seriously trade options at any point in the future. Without a holistic and firm understanding of what strike prices are, how they work, why they are different than break-even prices, you cannot be adequately prepared to safely trade options. And therefore, because we want to help all traders place smarter trades, we've devoted this show to answering your questions ...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show221 Starting to trade a covered call strategy is a popular "bridge" for traditional stock traders or investors transitioning to the world of options trading. It's a logical, bolt-on options strategy that has numerous benefits over traditional long stock positions. Today's show digs in one extra level and explores the different setups and ways to trade synthetic covered calls with a particular focus on using call spreads vs. single-leg short calls.
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show220 In today's show, I'll walk through four clever, dare I say "wicked-smart", ways to leverage our proprietary SmartPricing technology for routing orders intelligently to the markets. If you're already trading with us at Option Alpha then you'll learn some new techniques that will help improve the efficiency of your bots and automations. If you're not trading with bots yet and are still manually entering all your opening and closing orders yourself, w...
Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show219 Calculating break even prices for different option strategies isn't as complicated and overwhelming as it might seem. Yes, you do need to perform some basic math functions to find different break even prices but it's certainly not rocket science. Plus, it's an invaluable concept to master because it's critical to your success as a trader. In today's show, I'll help you understand what break even prices are and how to calculate them for all of the m...
ryan mcneil
It's back!!!
Ola
Hi Kirk, Have you decided to stop recording the podcasts? There is nothing after October 2020. Could you let us know please?
Ola
Hi Kirk, Can you please mention what was the time period that you backtested those strategies over? You mention those 500-670% returns but the period of time you testes is not mentioned in the podcast. Many thanks in advance. Best, Ola
fresh mannn
speaking of the scarcity mindset, be sure to look into Andrew Yang and his book “The War on Normal People”. Great ep Kirk
Ian Buell
Great episode!