Trade Ideas and Market Alerts
Featured Trade Ideas shows trade cards for the stocks you pick - spreads, iron condors and butterflies, calls, puts and straddles found by our preset strategy screens - each with its market price, theoretical value, edge and historical win rate. The Market Alerts, Insights & Trade Ideas dashboard lists the day's alerts on unusual activity, earnings, volatility and strategies. Premium and Premium Options members see each card's strikes; members of any Premium plan see the alert details.
What are Featured Trade Ideas and Market Alerts?
Our strategy screeners compare option strategies' prices with what the same trades have been worth in the past. Featured Trade Ideas turns the results for one stock into trade cards: one card per strategy, with its market price, theoretical value, edge and historical win rate. The Market Alerts, Insights & Trade Ideas dashboard is a running list through the day of alerts on unusual option or stock activity, earnings, volatility changes, strategy ideas and more.
How ideas and alerts are picked
- Trade cards. For the stock you pick, our preset strategy screens search the strategy screeners' data for bull and bear call and put spreads, credit and debit iron condors and iron butterflies, long calls, long puts, long and short straddles, and bullish seasonality spreads. The name of the screen that found an idea is shown under its strategy.
- Theoretical value and edge. Each card puts the market price, as a credit or a debit, next to the theoretical value: what the trade has been worth on average, given how the stock moved over past periods of the same length, using 4 years of history by default. Edge is the expected gain or loss this implies, as a percentage of the capital at risk, and Hist. Win Rate how often the trade would have made money.
- Which stocks. Active Options lists the 10 stocks and ETFs with the most option volume today. Seasonality - Bullish, Bullish Opportunities and Bearish Opportunities list the stocks our preset screens found for those plays. Custom Search takes a symbol, the symbols you viewed recently, a watchlist or a saved stock screener preset.
- Order. Cards are sorted by edge. The Strategy menu shows the Top 3 By Edge, which is the default, the Top 3 By Win Rate, one strategy or Any.
- Alerts. The dashboard shows alerts from the last 16 hours - on weekends and holidays, since noon of the last trading day - with up to 5 of each type (12 premarket or after-hours movers while those sessions run), one per symbol for each type and 50 in all, newest first. It refreshes itself every 2 minutes for members of any Premium plan and every 4 minutes for everyone else, for a limited time; reload the page to start again.
A trade card or an alert describes a strategy's price and past results, not a recommendation. Edge and win rate come from past stock moves, which may not repeat.
What you can find out
Which option strategies on a stock look underpriced against their history?
Search the symbol under Custom Search and keep the Strategy menu on Top 3 By Edge: the three cards with the highest theoretical edge. Choose Any to see every card for the stock. How theoretical edge is worked out
What are the trade ideas on today's most active options?
The Active Options tab lists the 10 stocks and ETFs with the most option volume today, largest company first; click one to load its cards. See Featured Trade Ideas
Where are the bullish or bearish option ideas?
Bullish Opportunities shows bull call and put spreads and long calls; Bearish Opportunities shows bear call and put spreads and long puts. Seasonality - Bullish lists stocks with a bullish seasonal pattern for the period ahead, with the share of positive past periods, the average move and the number of observations. Browse the tabs
What unusual option or stock activity was flagged today?
The Market Alerts dashboard lists each alert's time and headline. Icons mark stocks at a new 52-week high or low, or in an uptrend or downtrend. Open Market Alerts
Are there trade ideas or alerts for the stocks I follow?
Premium and Premium Options members can pick My Watchlists or My Presets under Custom Search. On the alerts dashboard, members of any Premium plan can filter by alert type and hide the types they don't want under Manage My Alert Preferences. Set up a watchlist
Where to find it
Featured Trade Ideas: Options › For Premium Users › Tools › Featured Trade Ideas, or go straight to /Options-Markets/Featured-Options-Trade-Ideas. It opens on Active Options, or on Custom Search with your recently viewed symbols. A stock's own cards are also on its Option Trade Ideas page, for example SPY's top 3 by edge.
Market Alerts: Screeners › Features › Market Alerts, Insights & Trade Ideas, or go straight to /Markets/stock-options-alerts-and-trade-ideas. Click an alert for its details and charts.
On the trade cards, everyone sees the strategy, price, theoretical value, edge and win rate; Premium and Premium Options members also see each leg's expiration, strike and buy or sell, the link to the option chain and the full Report. On the alerts dashboard, everyone sees the list; members of any Premium plan see each alert's details and the charts, and everyone else sees a demo example.
What a trade card shows
| Part | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Strategy and screen name | The strategy, such as Bull Put Spread or Credit Iron Condor, and the preset screen that found it |
| Market Price [Debit] or [Credit] | What the strategy costs, or brings in, at current prices |
| Theoretical Value | What the trade has been worth on average, from past stock moves |
| Edge | The expected gain or loss against theoretical value, as a percentage of capital at risk |
| Hist. Win Rate | How often the trade would have made money in the past periods, shown up to 99% |
| Expiration, Strike, Action | Each leg and whether to buy or sell it, with a link to the option chain (Premium and Premium Options) |
| Report | The full analysis behind the card |
FAQ
- What is theoretical edge?
- The difference between a trade's theoretical value and its price - value minus price when you buy, price minus value when you sell - as a percentage of the capital at risk. The Theoretical Edge guide works through an example.
- How much history is behind the trade cards?
- 4 years of stock moves by default, over past periods as long as the time left to expiration. If earnings fall before expiration, only past periods that included an earnings report are used.
- Why are only three cards showing?
- The Strategy menu starts on Top 3 By Edge. Choose Any to see every card for the stock, or a single strategy to see only that kind.
- Which alerts appear on the dashboard?
- The alert types we have switched on, such as unusual option volume, upcoming earnings, sentiment from option trades, implied volatility changes, price trends and strategy ideas. Members of any Premium plan can filter by type and hide types under Manage My Alert Preferences.
- What is free?
- Everyone sees the trade cards' strategy, price, theoretical value, edge and win rate, and the list of alerts. The legs of each card and the full Report need a Premium or Premium Options plan; alert details and charts need any Premium plan.
- Are trade ideas and alerts recommendations?
- No. They show a strategy's current price against its past results, or flag activity in the market; past stock moves may not repeat.
Related
Theoretical Edge Option strategies Today's Earnings Opportunities How the Options Backtester WorksTerms on this page
Theoretical value Win rate Credit spread Iron condorMarket Chameleon provides data, not investment advice.