- Alpha Investment
- The return an investment generates above its benchmark. Positive alpha means the strategy beat the market after adjusting for risk. It's essentially "did this investment earn more than it should have, given its risk level?"
- Ask / Bid Trading
- The ask is the lowest price a seller will accept; the bid is the highest a buyer will pay. The spread between them is a transaction cost. Tight spreads indicate liquid markets; wide spreads in less liquid options mean your fill may be worse than quoted.
- Assignment Options
- When an option is exercised, the underlying shares change hands at the strike price. If you sold a naked call and it gets assigned, you may be forced to deliver shares at a price far below market value — a risk that can turn a small premium collection into a catastrophic loss.
- At-The-Money (ATM) Moneyness
- When the underlying asset's price is essentially equal to the strike price. ATM options have no intrinsic value — their entire premium is extrinsic. They're maximally sensitive to changes in implied volatility and are commonly used in straddles and strangles.
- Beta Investment
- Measures how much an asset's price moves relative to the overall market. A beta of 1.5 means the stock tends to move 50% more than the market — up and down. High-beta stocks amplify market moves. Low-beta stocks are more defensive. Beta is most useful in a rising/falling market context, not a sideways one.
- Breakeven Point Trading
- The price the underlying must reach for a trade to neither make nor lose money after accounting for all costs. For a long call bought at $3.00 premium with a $100 strike, the breakeven is $103. Options with wide bid/ask spreads can have multiple effective breakevens due to slippage.
- Bull Put Spread Strategy
- Selling a higher strike put and buying an even lower strike put for protection. You collect premium but cap your downside. It's a defined-risk, moderately bullish trade — one of the most common premium income strategies for accounts that can't afford assignment risk.
- Call Option Options
- A contract giving the holder the right to buy the underlying asset at the strike price on or before expiration. Buying calls is a bullish position. Selling covered calls is a common income strategy — you collect premium while holding the underlying stock.
- Collar Strategy
- Owning stock while simultaneously buying puts for downside protection and selling calls to fund those puts. The result: you cap your upside at the call strike and your downside at the put strike. Institutions use collars to lock in gains without selling shares outright.
- Covered Call Strategy
- Selling a call option on a stock you already own. The premium you collect is yours to keep regardless of what happens — unless the stock gaps above the strike and the call gets assigned. Covered calls are most profitable in sideways or slightly bullish markets. In a sharp downturn, the premium provides some cushion.
- Credit Spread Strategy
- Any options strategy where you collect net premium upfront and set up max profit if the underlying stays within a price range. Bull put spreads and bear call spreads are both credit spreads. The key advantage over naked options: defined risk, capped loss.
- Delta Greek
- Measures how sensitive an option's price is to a $1 move in the underlying. Ranges from −1.0 (deep put) to +1.0 (deep call). A delta of 0.30 on a call means a $1 rise in the stock gains the option $0.30. Delta also approximates the probability the option expires ITM.
- Delta Neutral Strategy
- A position where the overall delta of your portfolio is approximately zero — meaning you're neither betting on direction up or down, but rather on changes in volatility or time. Delta-neutral positions require active management as delta shifts continuously.
- Exercise / Assignment Options
- Exercise: the option holder invokes their right to buy or sell at the strike. Assignment: the obligation falls on the short side — they must fulfill the contract. American-style options (most stock options) can be exercised at any time before expiration; European-style (SPX, some indexes) only at expiration.
- Expiration Date Options
- The last day an option can be exercised or closed. After market close on expiration day, the option ceases to exist — it's either exercised, assigned, or becomes worthless. Standard monthly options expire on the third Friday of each month. Weekly options expire every Friday.
- Extrinsic Value Options
- The portion of an option's price that isn't "in the money" — everything beyond intrinsic value. Also called time value. This is the bet that the underlying will move before expiration and/or that implied volatility will increase. It decays every single day (theta), which is why buying options is a race against time.
- Gamma Greek
- Measures how quickly delta changes when the underlying moves. Near expiration, ATM options have extremely high gamma — small price swings cause huge delta swings. Short gamma positions (sold naked options) are the most dangerous in volatile, fast markets because losses accelerate non-linearly.
- Hedge Ratio Risk
- How many options or contracts you need to hedge a given stock position. A 100-share stock position can be fully hedged with one long put contract (each contract = 100 shares). Partial hedges use 0.5 contracts, etc. Hedge ratios are about how much risk you're willing to reduce, not eliminate.
- Implied Volatility (IV) Volatility
- The market's expectation of future price movement, extracted from option prices using a pricing model. When IV is high, options are expensive. When IV is low, options are cheap. IV percentile or rank tells you whether current IV is historically high or low — useful for deciding whether to buy or sell premium.
- In-The-Money (ITM) Moneyness
- When an option has intrinsic value. A $105 call on a $110 stock is ITM by $5. ITM options are more expensive but have a higher probability of expiring profitably. For puts: a $105 put on a $100 stock (stock below strike) is ITM. Professional traders often prefer ITM options for defined-risk bearish trades due to lower delta erosion.
- Intrinsic Value Options
- The immediate, realizable value of an option if exercised right now. For a call: stock price minus strike. For a put: strike minus stock price. Zero if the option is out-of-the-money. Intrinsic value cannot be negative — an option simply expires worthless if there's none.
- Iron Condor Strategy
- Selling both an OTM call spread and an OTM put spread simultaneously — four legs total. You profit if the stock stays within a defined range. The max profit is the net premium collected; the max loss is the width of the wider spread minus premium. Popular for range-bound markets with low IV.
- IV Crush Volatility
- The sudden drop in implied volatility that follows a known catalyst — most commonly earnings announcements. When IV collapses, option premiums contract even if the stock moves in your favor. Buying calls before earnings is the classic way to get IV-crushed. Selling options into earnings is a common income strategy that exploits this dynamic.
- LEAPS Options
- Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities — options with expirations more than one year out, sometimes up to three years. Long-dated options have lower theta decay per day and higher vega sensitivity. They're used as leveraged long-term positions or as portfolio protection that doesn't require constant rolling.
- Margin Requirement Risk
- The collateral your broker requires to hold a position, particularly for short options or leveraged trades. Unlike stocks — where you only need 50% to buy — options on margin follow requirement models (Reg T, portfolio margin) that can demand significant capital. Getting margin-called on a short option position can force liquidation at the worst possible time.
- Open Interest Trading
- The total number of option contracts of a specific strike and expiration that are open (not yet exercised, assigned, or expired). Higher open interest generally means more liquidity and tighter bid/ask spreads. Low open interest can mean your exit price will be substantially worse than the quoted price.
- Out-of-the-Money (OTM) Moneyness
- An option with no intrinsic value. A $110 call on a $105 stock is OTM. OTM options are cheaper but require a larger move to become profitable. Most speculative option buying is in OTM options — which is why most speculative option buying loses money. OTM isn't bad; it's just a higher hurdle.
- Premium Options
- The market price of an option contract — what you pay to buy or receive to sell. Premium is quoted per share; multiply by 100 for the actual dollar cost. It's composed of intrinsic value (if any) plus extrinsic value (time + implied volatility). For short option sellers, premium collection is the income source; for buyers, it's the cost of the bet.
- Put Option Options
- A contract giving the holder the right to sell the underlying at the strike price. Buying puts is a bearish or protective position. Selling cash-secured puts is a popular strategy to acquire stock at a price you're willing to pay while collecting premium upfront.
- Realized Volatility Volatility
- How much the underlying actually moved, measured statistically over a given period (often 20 or 30 days). This is the "true" volatility that option prices should theoretically reflect. Comparing realized vol to implied vol tells you whether options are relatively expensive or cheap right now.
- Rolling an Option Trading
- Closing one option and opening the same underlying at a different strike or expiration. Traders roll to avoid assignment, extend a position that hasn't worked yet, or adjust a losing trade to give it more time. Rolling adds transaction costs and can turn a small loss into a larger one if done habitually without a thesis.
- Sharpe Ratio Risk
- Return divided by volatility — measures how much return you're generating per unit of risk taken. A Sharpe of 1.0 is acceptable; 2.0+ is exceptional. The limitation: it uses standard deviation as the proxy for risk, which doesn't capture tail events well. A strategy can have a good Sharpe ratio and still blow up in a black-swan scenario.
- Straddle Strategy
- Buying both a call and put at the same strike and expiration — profiting from a big move in either direction. The trader doesn't care which way the stock goes; they just need it to move enough to cover the combined premium cost. Volatility plays are the main use case. High IV makes straddles expensive; low IV makes them potentially attractive.
- Strangle Strategy
- Like a straddle but with different strikes — typically both OTM. A strangle costs less to open than a straddle (both are OTM, so cheaper) but requires a larger move in the underlying to become profitable. It's a lower-cost volatility play with a higher breakeven than a straddle.
- Strike Price Options
- The fixed price at which the option holder can buy (call) or sell (put) the underlying if they exercise. Also called the exercise price. Choosing a strike is the core decision in every options trade — it determines your cost, your breakeven, your probability of profit, and your Greeks profile.
- Synthetic Strategy
- A position created with options that mimics the payoff of another position. A synthetic long call = long stock + long put. A synthetic short put = short stock + short call. Advanced traders use synthetics to express views with different capital requirements or tax treatments than the equivalent stock position.
- Theta Greek
- Time decay — the daily loss in extrinsic value of an option. Long option holders have negative theta (bleeding time value every day); short option sellers have positive theta (collecting it). Theta is not linear — it accelerates in the final 30 days before expiration, which is why buying short-dated options is often a losing game even when you're right about direction.
- Vega Greek
- Measures how much an option's price changes for a 1% change in implied volatility. High-vega options (longer-dated, ATM) are most sensitive to IV swings. When IV rises, all options in that chain get more expensive — benefiting long holders and hurting short holders. Before earnings, high vega means you're paying for the IV boost whether the stock moves or not.
- Vertical Spread Strategy
- An options strategy using two strikes of the same expiration — one bought and one sold. Bull call spreads and bear put spreads are verticals. Vertical spreads limit both max profit and max loss, making them appropriate for accounts that need defined risk. They're the building block for more complex multi-leg structures.
- Volatility Skew Volatility
- Different strikes at the same expiration have different implied volatilities. Typically, OTM puts trade at higher IV than equivalent OTM calls — reflecting the market's fear of crashes versus euphoria. The skew tells you where the market is pricing the most risk, which is useful for selecting strikes in spreads.