Certainly the spread and the delta should be taken into account when deciding to enter a position. One may find that, when trading slightly OTM options, SPY needs to move by .25 in your desired direction just for you to break even. Some more bits of advice for the OP: Willing to hold the option position overnight? Look at the theta; right now, ATM front month SPY options lose 8 cents every night. An important component of option price is IV. Generally with index options, IV moves higher when the index makes a big drop, as they did on Friday. So calls go down in price less than their delta would indicate (and puts go up more). If the index goes back up, IV will decrease and calls will go up in price less than their delta would indicate. The result of this is, if you bet on a reversal and buy calls, you may find that, for example, an overnight jump of .50 in SPY may result in no increase in the value of an ATM front month call. Because of this, I prefer to trade puts, buying at what I think are intermediate market tops. You may find it easier to identify market bottoms and buy calls, but just keep in mind that calls won't go up as much as you think in a rising market.