Option Finder

How the option finder works

The option finder scans the options chain for a ticker and evaluates hundreds of possible trades in seconds. Before anything is ranked it drops contracts you couldn't realistically trade. The strict liquidity filter needs a two-sided quote, at least 100 contracts of open interest and a bid-ask spread within 10% of the midpoint (or $0.10 on cheap options); the standard and loose filters accept the wider quotes common on lower-priced stocks, and the results say how many contracts each filter lets through.

Bullish, bearish and volatile scans evaluate single options and vertical spreads against your price target. A neutral scan looks for income instead: credit spreads and iron condors with short strikes picked by delta and wings about 1% of the stock price wide, plus cash-secured puts from 16 to 30 delta. Income trades need at least a 55% probability of profit; short strangles, whose losses are uncapped, appear only if you ask for them.

Probability of profit and expected value are worked out exactly as the calculator works them out for the same legs, so a result reads the same in both places: probability is risk-neutral and uses the expiration's fitted volatility smile, and expected value is what the legs are worth at today's prices, carried to expiration, less what you pay for them — which, priced off the market's own quotes, is mostly the bid-ask spread you give up. Ranking by expected value compares that per dollar of capital.

Long shots are left out of the ranking by default: debit trades whose expected value is negative and that either have under a 15% chance of profit or cost $0.50 a share or less. A $6 one-wide call spread can show a 1,500% return on risk at a 12% chance of profit while losing most of its cost to the bid-ask spread, and ranked by return it would top every bullish scan. The results say how many were left out, and one click shows them.

Outside market hours the quotes are the last session's closing quotes. Market makers often pull their bids on cheap contracts at the close, so while the market is closed a contract with no closing bid but a trade during the session is priced at that last trade (and still has to pass the spread test); results that sell one are marked. During the session a missing bid means nobody is bidding, and the contract is skipped.

Results use the listed expiration nearest your target date (or the one closest to 30 days out) and say which date they used — including when your date is beyond the last listed expiration. Annualised returns are hidden under two days to expiration, where they mean nothing. Every result opens in the options calculator for deeper analysis.