The Option Alpha Podcast

What if your portfolio looks diversified — but isn’t? This episode explores the concept of the “Pearl Harbor "portfolio, where hidden concentration risk builds quietly beneath calm market conditions. By stacking exposure in the same tickers, expiration windows, or strategies, traders can unknowingly create a single point of failure. You’ll learn how to identify warning signs of fragility, spr...

Trading doesn’t have to consume your life to be effective.  In this episode, long-time Option Alpha member Jack Krupey shares how a background in real estate and private equity shaped a steady, market-neutral approach to options trading. Instead of chasing excitement, the focus is on building systems that work across market cycles and fit naturally into daily routines. Discover how defined risk an...

Short-term trading moves fast—but without a long-term mindset, it often leads to burnout, overtrading, and inconsistency.  This episode explores why sustainable success in short-term options trading depends on thinking far beyond individual trades. It introduces the concept of longtermism and explains how focusing on process, risk management, and systems can dramatically change outcomes. Learn why...

Going live with real money brings realities that paper trading simply cannot replicate. In this episode, Kirk walks through the five essential things every trader should understand and consider before transitioning from paper trading to live trading.  From the limitations of paper trading to the execution challenges of real markets, we explain why strict expectations, conservative assumptions, and...

In this interview, Kirk sits down with Kevin, a long-time Option Alpha member who began trading in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Kevin shares how he turned his small beginnings into a consistent, structured approach that scales with his portfolio. Kevin details how he spent years learning before placing his first options trade and how those early experiences shaped his disciplined, r...

Markets rarely behave as predicted by mathematical models, and extreme events occur far more frequently than traditional models anticipate. This episode explains why understanding probabilities, fat tails, and risk is essential for long-term success. We also explore how traders can build more resilient systems by focusing on recovery time, appropriate position sizing, and avoiding strategies vulne...

0DTE options are transforming the way traders approach opportunity and risk. This episode breaks down why these contracts are so powerful (and popular), why 0DTE volume has surged, and how you can trade them with clarity instead of chaos. We dispel common myths and highlight the real advantages of these short-term strategies, such as rapid time decay, high liquidity, and faster statistical learnin...

In this episode of the Option Alpha podcast, Kirk sits down with his business partner and fellow founder, Jack Slocum, to share the full story behind Jack’s journey as a trader, developer, and entrepreneur. Jack talks about how he first turned to options trading to generate extra income for his family, how his early experiences “crashed and burned,” and why he has spent years since then learning a...

As an options trader, how closely should you be watching gamma and gamma exposure (GEX)? This episode will help you better understand gamma, interpret volatility, recognize inflection points, and build more context-aware strategies. Kirk sits down with Mat Cashman from the OIC to discuss gamma, explore how market makers hedge their positions, and why 0DTE options are so “gamma-rich.”  Mat explains...

Gamma is one of the most misunderstood yet powerful forces driving options markets. In this episode, Kirk sits down with Lex from Tradier to break down gamma exposure (GEX) — what it is, why it matters, and how it quietly shapes market movement.  Together, they unpack how professional traders use gamma to stay delta-neutral, manage risk, and interpret shifting liquidity, while retail traders can u...

Welcome to the Top Traders interview series, where we hear from Option Alpha community members who have delivered strong results over a meaningful number of trades.  In this kickoff episode, FK breaks down his disciplined, probability-driven options trading strategies. We'll explore FK’s approach to selling premium with defined risk, sizing positions conservatively, and running a dual-track p...

In this comeback episode, I’ll catch you up on the biggest updates inside Option Alpha, the major shifts in today’s options market (hello, 0DTE), and what to expect from the show going forward. The options landscape has changed dramatically in the past year. From 0DTE dominating SPX volumes to a flood of new retail traders, the environment today looks nothing like when this show last aired.  This...

We're joined by Adam Cohn, Vice President and Head of Trading Operations at TradeStation, an award-winning trading platform known for its comprehensive trading tools, advanced charting capabilities, and extensive market analysis features.  Adam brings a wealth of experience, not just from his role at TradeStation but also from his extensive background in options trading in the Chicago pits an...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show232 Navigating options expiration is a critical skill for traders, especially with the rise of daily expirations. This week’s podcast explores the top 7 automated tips and tricks you can use inside Option Alpha to set up your portfolio for better options expiration management. See all 7 tips here Adjust exit options as you near expiration Check the extrinsic...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show231 This week we explore the latest and most pressing challenges emerging for investors who have embraced autotrading. As automation revolutionizes the financial markets, traders find themselves navigating uncharted psychological territory. From trusting bots and algorithms, coping with reduced decision-making control, and the novel complexities of autotradi...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show230 This week I explore a deep and philosophical viewpoint into the world of automated trading and its inevitable rise for investors. I explore the evolutionary nature of human decision-making and its limitations in complex financial markets by examining cognitive biases and their impact on manual trading. I’ll also discuss the technological advancements dri...

AI is the hot new buzzword these days, sparked by the release of ChatGPT a few months ago. Since then, it seems everyone has used OpenAI’s software in fascinating (and sometimes scary) ways. So, I jumped into ChatGPT and asked it to come up with the top questions that new and advanced traders ask about options trading.  This week's podcast explores the 15 questions - and answers - that option...

How long does it take a stock to get back to even after a large daily move down? And does the magnitude impact how long it takes the position to recover the loss? We’ve all been in losing trades and wondered if we should hang on to the position for a little longer or cut it loose. So, to help answer the question, we studied the short-term performance of stocks and ETFs after different daily loss t...

Stocks have been described as a rubber band, and we often assume they will snap back and revert when prices become overextended. So, we wanted to know: How likely is a security to continue or reverse its momentum above and below major moving averages in short, medium, and long-term timeframes? And does the security’s proximity to a moving average impact its performance? We researched 20 years of d...

"The trend is your friend." It’s a popular saying amongst traders, and we hear it all the time. But is there validity in the statement? We backtested directional option selling strategies with a long-term trend filter to see if there is a significant impact on performance. We used Option Alpha's backtester to review the data for  SPY, GLD, and TLT short put spreads and short call sp...

This week we take a look at the performance of the Monthly Iron Condors ($3k Portfolio) bot template. You might recall that we previously did a deep dive on this template back on Show 214 , walking through the strategy setup, the scanner and monitor automation setups, etc. But now that we’ve had it running for a little over a year, we thought it would be help to take a look at how it has weathered...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show224 Option spreads are a simple and flexible, yet powerful strategy for traders. And while spread strategies come in many forms, shapes, structures, and durations, some core elements are present in spread trading generally that new traders should pay attention to. On this week's show, we'll once again slow things down a bit and focus on understandi...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show223 What if you could build an automated strategy that navigates all market conditions? And while we know there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we believe you can design a bot strategy that assesses the market trend and proactively adapts to current conditions. This "trader's dream" finally manifested itself in a bot template that become the...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show222 Option strike prices are an absolutely critical concept to master if you're going to seriously trade options at any point in the future. Without a holistic and firm understanding of what strike prices are, how they work, why they are different than break-even prices, you cannot be adequately prepared to safely trade options. And therefore, because w...

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show221 Starting to trade a covered call strategy is a popular "bridge" for traditional stock traders or investors transitioning to the world of options trading. It's a logical, bolt-on options strategy that has numerous benefits over traditional long stock positions. Today's show digs in one extra level and explores the different setups and...