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, spread risk across time and asset classes, and design strategies that behave differently under stress. Ra...

Transcribed - Published: 27 February 2026

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 and consistent habits support long-term sustainability, along with practical advice for trader...

Transcribed - Published: 2 February 2026

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 dopamine-driven decision-making is dangerous, how automation and rules reduce emotional pre...

Transcribed - Published: 26 January 2026

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 a solid understanding of liquidity are crucial. Kirk also breaks down how to prepare for in...

Transcribed - Published: 5 January 2026

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, rules-based philosophy. He explains how he uses position sizing, trend, and DTE selection to creat...

Transcribed - Published: 29 December 2025

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 vulnerable to black swan events. Discover why win rate alone can be misleading, and how expected value...

Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2025

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 learning cycles. You’ll also learn about the risks that traders often ignore, how psychology impacts int...

Transcribed - Published: 15 December 2025

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 as much as possible about markets and risk. Tune in now! How Jack First Got Into Options Tr...

Transcribed - Published: 26 November 2025

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 why hedging dynamics can create sharp market moves and how concepts like charm and convexit...

Transcribed - Published: 29 October 2025

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 use it to better understand price behavior and volatility. Lex explains the difference betwee...

Transcribed - Published: 22 October 2025

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 portfolio that balances longer-term spreads (marathons) with 0DTE trading (sprints) for consistent...

Transcribed - Published: 16 October 2025

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 reboot of the OA podcast recaps the biggest trends shaping options right now, explores the m...

Transcribed - Published: 9 October 2025

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 and as a market maker. His deep understanding of market structure and dedication to best execution...

Transcribed - Published: 11 October 2024

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 expirationCheck the extrinsic value of your positions/legsCheck the probability of short legs being ITMDon’t use market orders...

Transcribed - Published: 7 August 2023

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 autotrading that demand a new style of adaptation and resilience. With help from our team, I’ll peel b...

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2023

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 driving this shift, risk management in autotrading, and the future trends and challenges in this...

Transcribed - Published: 19 July 2023

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 options trades want to know. See all 15 answers here What are options and how do they work?How much ...

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2023

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 totals. The study analyzed 324 assets over a 20-year period. We calculated the 5-day returns fol...

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2023

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 data on 286 symbols, using short, mid, and long-term trends to analyze the ticker’s 30-day retu...

Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2023

"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 spreads. Short put spread tests included a filter to only enter trades above the 200-day moving average. Sho...

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2023

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 this year’s market volatility and explore possible ways to adjust or improve its performance in t...

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2023

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 understanding what option spreads are and how to trade spreads in your portfolio.

Transcribed - Published: 8 August 2022

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 collective “brainchild” of the amazing Community of traders right here at Option Alpha! The Hexabot, as it's n...

Transcribed - Published: 1 August 2022

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 we want to help all traders place smarter trades, we've devoted this show to answering your questions ...

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2022

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 ways to trade synthetic covered calls with a particular focus on using call spreads vs. single-leg short calls.

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show220 In today's show, I'll walk through four clever, dare I say "wicked-smart", ways to leverage our proprietary SmartPricing technology for routing orders intelligently to the markets. If you're already trading with us at Option Alpha then you'll learn some new techniques that will help improve the efficiency of your bots and automations. If you're not trading with bots yet and are still manually entering all your opening and closing orders yourself, w...

Transcribed - Published: 29 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show219 Calculating break even prices for different option strategies isn't as complicated and overwhelming as it might seem. Yes, you do need to perform some basic math functions to find different break even prices but it's certainly not rocket science. Plus, it's an invaluable concept to master because it's critical to your success as a trader. In today's show, I'll help you understand what break even prices are and how to calculate them for all of the m...

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show218 In life there are three things that are certain; death, taxes, and bear markets. For many new options traders, the current bear market we've found ourselves in might just be your first. An inconvenient reminder that risk is present when trading, particularly when trading options. But alas, as the old saying goes, "It's just part of the game..." and my goal today is to make sure that this bear market isn't your last. That's right, I want to help you...

Transcribed - Published: 15 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show217 Hey everyone this is Kirk here again from optionalpha.com, working every single week to make this the most popular investing podcast offered online because it's based on one thing and one thing only and that's. . . Helping you consistently place SMARTER trades. Thank you so much again for tuning in and welcome back!

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show216 Hey everyone this is Kirk here again from optionalpha.com, working every single week to make this the most popular investing podcast offered online because it's based on one thing and one thing only and that's. . . Helping you consistently place SMARTER trades. Thank you so much again for tuning in and welcome back!

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show215 On this week's episode, we'll present a collection of questions custom tailored for digging deep into your psychology and mindset around trading. These are questions you should ask yourself, ones that trading coach might ask you, on a recurring schedule to help uncover and keep a pulse on the potentially harmful subconscious "self-talk" that tends to consume you. Look, trading options is already hard enough and it's certainly not in your best inter...

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show214 New traders with small accounts are constantly on the hunt for option strategies that help them get started but intelligently allocate their money without blowing up. And so back on Show 159 of the podcast we outlined a framework for building an options portfolio with just $3,000 which become of our most popular episodes. But when we recorded it, almost 2 years ago, we didn't have automated trading which means you still had to take everything we di...

Transcribed - Published: 16 March 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show213 Last year during the beta launch of the autotrading platform, I decided to take some time off from trading so that my full and undivided attention was appropriately on supporting groups of beta users during the launch of the autotrading platform. Plus, my live accounts were the proverbial "guinea pigs" for lots of critical testing and bug hunting that could only be found when connecting bots to live markets. But this "reflection time" was not only ...

Transcribed - Published: 1 March 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show212 Allocating capital used to be a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Breaking out your calculator or excel spreadsheet to manually run risk calculations and position sizing percentages before opening new trades. That's all of course if you actually remember to check your position sizing before each new position. Now, with automated trading, smart traders are creating highly efficient capital allocation systems that correctly adjust position sizin...

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show211 The iron butterfly strategy is a popular neutral options strategy. Plus, with their high probability and risk-defined characteristics, traders of any experience level can use in their portfolios. On this week's show we'll invest some time together and help you understand as many of the "ins and outs" of trading iron butterflies as we can possibly fit into an episode. We hope this becomes your new "go-to" resource for learning how to trade iron butt...

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show210 Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. As a trader, we might have been conditioned after years of using legacy platforms to just "suck it up" and grid our way through complex and tedious tasks on a daily basis. But with automated trading, you can finally offload the things you do now (or should be doing) as a trader for bots and automations. In today's show, we'll highlight at least 12 complex things that are simple to automate with bots. If y...

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2022

We are excited to announce that the Option Alpha platform doors are open to the trading public! This episode explains how you can get access to our new platform and what to expect when you begin autotrading. We’ll also do a deep dive on why we built the platform, what it is, what it is not, and what’s next for Option Alpha. How to Get Access Join the Waitlist and request an invitation.You will gain access to a FREE 30-day trial with no limitations and no commitments.You can move up the...

Transcribed - Published: 18 January 2022

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show208 The decades long evolution and growth in easily accessible brokerage platforms have created a self-reinforcing cycle of low attention span investors that are also now pulling even the deepest and most steadfast investors down the rabbit hole. Plus, the rise and popularity of meme stock investing certainly has pulled investor attention spans away from traditional analysis and reprogramed us constantly look for the next big move. On today's show we'l...

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show207 Earlier this year we officially rolled out a massive free resource for traders with our launch of The Option Alpha Handbook. No more wasting time searching endlessly across dozens of unreliable sources cluttered with ads to get answers to all your burning questions about strategies, markets, options, and so much more. We built this just for you and our goal is to make it the ultimate reference guide for traders seeking clear, non-subjective answers...

Transcribed - Published: 16 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show206 On this week's episode, I wanted to try something new and explore just a single bot template in detail together - a full and complete deep dive into the origin, strategy, automations, and decisions for one bot template. For this maiden voyage I chose the Trendy Short Put Spread bot which I believe is a great starting point for the potential series of "Bot Talks" in the future. Inside the show, we'll talk about everything from the backtesting we did...

Transcribed - Published: 11 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show205 Often the terms hedging and diversifying are used interchangeably by traders. You might hear someone say, "You need to hedge your positions..." or, "You need to diversify your portfolio..." and in either case we understand the overarching goal as broadly the same objective; reduce risk inside a portfolio. However, the means by which you might accomplish this and the manner in which you get there via either hedging or diversifying, or a combination ...

Transcribed - Published: 2 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show204 Ever wish you could intelligently use automated technology that tracked and or trailed option trades for specific exit criteria without having to watch, edit, and replace orders day after day? Not some boring, outdated Good-Til-Cancelled order or generic, static Stop-Loss order either. Well our team granted this #1 wish from our beta users months ago and in week's show we're going to walk though one of the coolest new features developed for traders...

Transcribed - Published: 26 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show203 Futures trading is on the rise and continues to grow in popularity. The trouble has been however that for most traders getting started in futures they find it overly complex and hard to manage. Though more capital-efficient than stocks, futures contracts come with a slew of complex sizes and specifications that turn many traders away from them. Thankfully this week's guest is on a mission to help make futures markets more accessible with small, sta...

Transcribed - Published: 19 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show202 Decision recipes use easy to read natural language to help you setup detailed instructions for your automations to follow inside a bot. These decision recipes can also be grouped and linked together into infinite combinations so you have as much flexibility and control as possible. The last few months we've seen thousands of automations created inside the new Option Alpha platform and today I wanted to highlight eight of the more popular decision r...

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show201 This week on the podcast we finally release our much anticipated interview with Jason Goepfert of SentimenTrader.com. Inside Jason and I dive deep on investor psychology, market sentiment analysis, and discuss the concept of adjusting and managing risk exposure using sentiment as opposed to market timing. You don't want to miss this very timely and important conversation.

Transcribed - Published: 5 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show200 Well today we celebrate the 200th episode of the Option Alpha Podcast. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has made the show possible, and most importantly, you the listener who has supported us in this journey to get to 200 episodes. It's pretty incredible that we got to this stage with this podcast. I hope that you really enjoy all of the upcoming shows that we have scheduled. Here's to another 200 more episodes on this podcast in th...

Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show199 As automated trading starts going mainstream for retail traders, we wanted to ensure that expectations are set properly. Particularly, this includes discussing why we believe that automated trading does not mean unattended trading. To help guide and frame this conversation I invited our Chief Market Strategist, Ryan Hysmith, back on the show with me. Inside we'll talk about the future of automated trading, if automated trading provides an edge, and...

Transcribed - Published: 14 June 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show198 After a couple of months on pause for the podcast, while we focused on the beta launch of our automated trading platform, we're thrilled to be back and ready to rock and roll again. On this week's show, we'll do a mini "State of the Union" on what we've been up to, what's new, and what you can expect moving forward. We think this is a great way to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time and make sure we're all aligned together mo...

Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2021

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show197 There's a lot of research to support the usage of trend indicators as simple risk reduction elements that can be layered onto an existing strategy. The trouble, however, was that in the past investors had to monitor the trend and execute the appropriate trade reversals when the trend changed. With automation, we can now offload this simple portfolio strategy to bots - and cleverly defined multiple possible trend exits all from one simple automation....

Transcribed - Published: 22 October 2020

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show196 Trading short naked puts (i.e. put selling or put writing) can be an effective and profitable options trading strategy. Often the attraction to naked put selling is the ability to collect premium with a margin for error if the stock drops, and have the ability to purchase stock at a discount to the current market price. The trouble comes however when the stock moves lower and challenges the naked put position and today's show is dedicated to helping...

Transcribed - Published: 19 October 2020