Hi everyone, I’m currently working on building a trading strategy that relies primarily on Theta Decay, without needing to predict market direction. I want to profit purely from the passage of time, as long as price stays within a reasonable range. I'm looking for someone who: Has experience with market neutral options strategies Understands setups like Short Guts, Iron Condor, or Broken Wing Butterfly Can help me develop a consistent weekly approach for generating steady income I'm not interested in technical analysis or directional plays — my goal is: ✅ To earn from time decay ✅ Keep risk well-controlled ✅ Add a simple hedge when necessary If you’ve traded something similar or are open to collaborating to refine and optimize such a setup, I’d love to connect and share ideas. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help
Market neutral just means you've given up. This is like Step 3 on the "newb to debit account" strategy. The downside to +theta is -gamma. I will help you here. Avoid condors. Trade diagonals and add a lot or two on the back end. SPY long 585/587 (back) say 10x11. It's dumb, just less egregious.
Short translation: "I want free money." As @demoncore noted, you don't get to be long theta without also being short gamma. If it was possible to trade without risk, that's what every single market participant would be doing (and non-traders would pile in when they heard about it.) For every upside, there's a downside. The only thing you can do is choose a strategy that fits your market outlook, define with absolute clarity how you're going to manage the downside when (not 'if') it occurs, and shoot your shot when your entry conditions happen. Anything else is a fantasy that you've been sold by some slick marketer on YouTube ("consistent weekly approach for generating steady income" is straight up copy-and-paste from that canon.)
I’m trading theta-based setups and using CFD hedges to lock in premium and avoid large directional exposure.
I’m trading theta-based setups and using CFD hedges to lock in premium and avoid large directional exposure.
Gosh, I sure am glad those CFDs are free and have no risks associated with them. Me, I just trade smaller (or not at all) if I have low confidence in my thesis. Good luck, and let us know how this works out. Assuming you can afford luxuries like Internet access afterwards.
. Amen... I should have, and most other dedicated traders would agree, had that Tattooed On My Inner Eyelids (saw it every time I Blinked) when I first started trading.
Whilst everything you have been told by the option traders above is true. And you should listen to them, we can add something else. To benefit from theta decay you need a quiet market, as flat as possible. That's not easy to find. One way is to understand the days that daytraders like to trade. They love volatile days, so they can ride a trend. Try to understand the hot days that a market might have, around earnings, reports like CPI, trade wars, crypto crashes, and so on. Wait for the storm to pass and you will have a couple of days where the market will be flat. Then trigger a short straddle and watch that theta decay at work. Trade when daytraders are not active. But you will see that you might have one or two days the most, after that, the market will start trending again.
The market is all about Timing. It doesn't matter what or how you trade...it's All about Timing. You're Timing....the market will remain flat for your particular strategy to work and payoff. That's a risky proposition, if you ask me. There's too many things beyond your control and foresight at the moment. Learn to understand all the variables and elements in play. Control and anticipate them all into an artwork framework picture expectation map