Options strategies

There is no best strategy, and Realtime Options does not build them

Strategy selection follows from a view, an account and a tolerance for loss. Content that ranks strategies by average return without stating the loss distribution is selling an outcome, not teaching a method.

Realtime Options has no strategy builder, no payoff-diagram tool and no backtesting. It contributes the positioning context you check before choosing a structure — where premium and open interest are concentrated, which strikes are crowded, what exposure sits nearby. The strategy pages name the tools that do the modelling instead.

Concept guides

• Call options explained

  A call option gives its buyer the right, not the obligation, to buy 100 shares of the underlying at a fixed strike price on or before expiration, in exchange for a premium paid to the seller.

• Put options explained

  A put option gives its buyer the right, not the obligation, to sell 100 shares of the underlying at a fixed strike price on or before expiration; the seller takes the matching obligation to buy those shares if assigned.

• Buy calls or puts: a decision framework, not a recommendation

  No page, dataset or dashboard can tell you whether to buy calls or puts, because the answer depends on a view about direction, timing and volatility that only you hold, and on a financial situation that a website cannot see.

• Options trading strategies, organised by what they express

  An options trading strategy is a defined combination of long and short calls and puts chosen to express one specific view, with a maximum loss and a maximum gain that can be calculated before entry.

• Best options strategies: matching a structure to a view

  There is no best options strategy.

• Free options trading strategies and free strategy education

  Genuinely free options strategy education exists and it is good: the Options Industry Council, Cboe, FINRA and the OCC's disclosure document publish complete material on every common structure at no cost, and most brokers include paper trading so the mechanics can be practised without capital at risk.

• Covered call screener: what it screens and how to read it

  A covered call screener ranks call options you could sell against shares you already own, usually by premium received, return if the stock is unchanged, return if the shares are called away, an annualised equivalent of those returns, and the downside buffer the premium provides.

• Cash-secured put screener: collateral, yield and assignment

  A cash-secured put screener ranks put options you could sell while holding the full strike value in cash, usually by premium, return on that collateral, an annualised equivalent and the effective purchase price if you are assigned.

Screens, tools and comparisons

• High premium options screener: two opposite meanings

  High premium options screener describes two opposite searches.

• Options strategy scanner

  An options strategy scanner searches an option chain for multi-leg structures that match a target payoff, credit or probability, then ranks the candidates.

• Realtime Options vs OptionStrat: an honest options-flow comparison

  OptionStrat and Realtime Options overlap on options-market research, but they are not interchangeable.

Applied workflows and method posts

• Reading put flow without assuming bearish

  Put volume is not a bearish measure, because at least four unrelated trades produce it.

Questions people ask about this