Articles

• August 30, 2026 Selling puts on margin Same obligation, different collateral, and why that single difference changes the worst case.
• August 30, 2026 What happens to your contracts when the company does something Splits, special dividends and takeovers rewrite open contracts. What changes, and what it leaves you holding.
• August 30, 2026 What to record, and the fields that mislead Which fields to keep, which ones flatter you, and how to record a roll honestly.
• August 30, 2026 How options are taxed in a US account Expiry, closing and assignment are treated differently, and SPX and SPY are not the same.
• August 30, 2026 Why your broker won't let you place that trade Options accounts come in tiers, the tiers are the broker's, and the good strategies sit above the first.
• August 30, 2026 How many contracts The only input that decides whether a run of bad outcomes is survivable.
• August 30, 2026 The bid-ask spread is a cost, and you pay it twice The real commission on an options trade, quoted on screen and mentally filed as background.
• August 30, 2026 What a credit spread is, and what the protection costs Converting an open obligation into a known maximum loss, and what the conversion costs.
• August 30, 2026 What happens on expiration day Auto-exercise, pin risk at the strike, and the weekend you can't trade through.
• August 30, 2026 Why options lose value as expiration approaches The closest thing to a tailwind a seller gets, and the thing that always comes attached to it.
• August 30, 2026 What delta means, and the shortcut people misuse A rate of change that doubles as a probability, and why the second reading misleads.
• August 30, 2026 What the wheel actually is The loop is real. It only closes in one kind of market, and the premium total hides the rest.
• August 30, 2026 When not to sell premium The situations where the answer is no, regardless of how good the premium looks.
• August 30, 2026 What a high VIX does and doesn't tell you The most repeated rule in options, and the part of it that decides whether it works.
• August 30, 2026 What the VIX actually measures Not a fear gauge or a forecast. What the calculation is, and what follows from it.
• August 30, 2026 What implied volatility actually measures Where the number comes from, how to turn it into an expected move, and why fat premium is a warning.
• August 30, 2026 What rolling an option actually does Two trades wearing one ticket, why the net credit misleads, and how to log one honestly.
• August 30, 2026 What a covered call is and what you give up "Covered" means you own the shares, not that you're protected. One example through every outcome.
• August 30, 2026 What actually happens when you get assigned Who exercises, how the OCC allocates it, when you find out, and the part you can't undo.
• August 25, 2026 What you're agreeing to when you sell a put The promise before the premium: one example through every outcome, and the shape of the trade.