Evaluate selected option legs across three model dimensions
The page keeps the Options Strategy Optimizer URL, but its actual workflow is manual scenario analysis. There is no optimization objective, search across combinations, ranking engine or historical backtest. Select a preset, edit the contracts and compare how a theoretical position changes under separate price, volatility and time assumptions.
- Load a stock or ETF symbol. The page requests an underlying quote and one option snapshot page, limited to 250 records. Missing coverage does not prove a stock has no listed options.
- Choose from fourteen option-only presets or add distinct contracts up to four legs. Four additional stock or calendar presets explain why they are unsupported. Each template must find available strikes in the required order; otherwise no placeholder premium is invented.
- Use exact contract edits with the same expiration and exercise style. Each leg requires 1–100 whole contracts. Snapshot daily closes supply premiums; they are not limit-order prices or simultaneous fills.
- Inspect expiration bounds, snapshot Greek cards and the separate scenario tabs. A missing IV disables time-value scenarios; it does not prevent calculating expiration intrinsic-value payoffs.
Keep the source and units of each Greek clear
Summary Greeks are provider snapshot values. Scenario Greeks are recalculated from European Black-Scholes at the simulated stock price, volatility and remaining time. All are scaled by the buy/sell sign, quantity and 100 shares per contract. For example, one long call with Delta 0.50 and one short call with Delta 0.30 have approximately $20 of position-value sensitivity to a $1 underlying move, before nonlinear effects.
- Delta measures dollar sensitivity per $1 underlying move.
- Gamma measures the change in that Delta per $1 underlying move.
- Theta measures dollars per calendar day under the model’s fixed other inputs.
- Vega measures dollars per one absolute volatility percentage point.
Those are different units; comparing their vertical chart heights does not rank their risk. A missing snapshot Greek makes the corresponding net card unavailable. Modeled Greeks at zero remaining time are also unavailable, because the payoff has strike kinks and the ordinary pre-expiration sensitivities no longer apply. The tool does not fill either case with zero.
Read each scenario as a conditional calculation
The price tab samples 61 stock prices from 70% to 130% of the loaded quote, with each leg’s IV and time fixed. This is a viewing range, not a confidence interval. Expiration maximum profit and loss are evaluated separately at stock price zero, every strike and the upper-tail slope; a chart edge does not establish unlimited risk or reward.
The volatility tab applies twelve relative changes from −50% to +100% to each leg’s IV. A +50% scenario changes 30% IV to 45%, not 80%. It keeps stock price and time fixed and recomputes premiums and Greeks. This parallel relative shift does not model a change in skew or an earnings-specific volatility distribution.
The time tab samples at most 31 remaining-day points and keeps spot and IV constant. It includes zero exactly. At that endpoint a long option is worth its intrinsic value, and there is no artificial extra fraction of a day. Intermediate points use calendar days divided by 365. They are conditional model states, not forecasts of how the market will evolve.
Respect structure and data limits
Covered calls, protective puts and collars require a stock leg, which this option-only page does not model. Calendars require different expirations and a shared evaluation date with remaining time value on the longer leg. Their menu entries therefore return an explanation instead of an incomplete payoff. A Jade Lizard’s upside protection also depends on the received credit covering the call-spread width; its name alone provides no guarantee.
Snapshot responses may be cached for one hour and underlying quotes for 30 seconds. Daily-close premiums across contracts may refer to different observations; a fresh request does not mean a fresh quote. Only the first 250 records are used and later pages are not followed. A 100-share multiplier alone does not establish an unadjusted deliverable, which must be checked separately.
The model fixes a 5% continuously compounded rate and zero dividends, and excludes fees, slippage, financing, margin, early exercise, assignment and contract adjustments. It does not estimate a probability of profit or guarantee future performance. References: OIC model limitations, Theta, Vega, and finite long-put payoff.