Options Boot Camp

How do you pick stocks for the options wheel strategy—and what happens when you set that wheel on fire?

On Options Boot Camp 414, Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli explore fundamental analysis for wheel traders, from choosing stocks you're comfortable owning to evaluating companies for long-term covered call and cash-secured put strategies.

Dan breaks down P/E ratios, forward earnings, price-to-book, debt-to-equity, dividend yields and discounted cash flow models. The conversation also takes a surprising turn when Apple and NVIDIA come under the valuation microscope.

Meanwhile, Mark introduces the "Fire Wheel"—an aggressive, short-duration approach to wheeling that sparks a debate about premium, stock selection and getting burned.

Topics include:

• Fundamental vs. technical analysis: How your trading time horizon changes the approach. • Choosing underlying stocks for cash-secured puts and covered calls. • Using financial ratios and discounted cash flow models—and understanding their limitations. • Apple vs. NVIDIA: A surprising valuation comparison. • Insider buying and selling as another stock selection input. • The birth of the Fire Wheel and the risks of chasing premium.

Get your options trading education with a little extra heat.

Can AI identify the biggest problems facing the U.S. options market—or do experienced traders see risks the bots are missing?

Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli put ChatGPT and Google Gemini to the test, challenging both to rank the options market's five most pressing concerns. Then they debate the results, separating persistent industry headaches from emerging challenges that could change how you trade.

On this episode, we explore:

• 0DTE options: Does the explosion in same-day expiration trading amplify volatility or help traders manage intraday risk?

• 24-hour trading: What could extended hours mean for options liquidity, retail traders and overnight position management?

• Exchange fragmentation: Do more options exchanges improve competition or add costs and complexity?

• Payment for order flow: How should traders weigh routing conflicts and execution quality?

• Clearing and infrastructure: Are the bots identifying legitimate vulnerabilities or recycling outdated concerns?

Plus, Mark and Dan discuss competition from prediction markets, crypto perpetuals and tokenized derivatives. Dan also introduces his automated earnings time spread platform.

Do the bots earn a passing grade? Mark and Dan don't exactly agree—and listeners spot one risk AI conveniently leaves off its own list.

Could VIX perpetual futures change how traders access volatility? On this episode, Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli tackle your questions about VIX perps, individual stock volatility and what options prices really tell us ahead of earnings—with a little "bah, humbug" along the way.

The discussion includes:

• The buzz surrounding VIX perpetual futures and why the hosts distinguish speculation from an official product announcement. • Cash VIX versus VIX futures—and why that difference matters when trading VIX options. • Whatever happened to the single-stock volatility indexes for Apple, Amazon, Google, IBM and Goldman Sachs? • How to use implied volatility to assess uncertainty in stocks like Nvidia and Tesla. • Why Dan challenges the usefulness of earnings implied moves, plus how historical earnings data can inform the discussion. • The looming retirement of Trade Alert and a look at QuikOptions for options analytics and idea generation.

Plus, the hosts debate another round of VIX upside speculation, discuss Mark's exit from SVIX and weigh listener picks among Portillo's, Archer Aviation, Fermi and Lucid.

Rising Treasury yields have listeners asking: Is TLT the right ETF for trading a view on bonds, and will we ever get a tradable version of the MOVE Index?

Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli tackle your bond ETF options questions, comparing TLT and IEF, their options liquidity and the different portions of the Treasury yield curve they represent. They discuss why matching your trading thesis to the right underlying matters, particularly when your focus is the 10-year Treasury note.

The conversation also explores buying Treasuries directly, the history of Cboe's Treasury volatility indices and CME Group's CVOL suite. Why has creating a tradable bond volatility product proved so challenging—and do Mark and Dan think that will change?

Plus, the hosts weigh in on listener polls covering Nvidia's stock buyback and PURR options tied to Hyperliquid's HYPE token.

What can bond market volatility tell you that the VIX can't? Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli break down the MOVE Index and explain why equity options traders should keep an eye on Treasury yield volatility.

Learn what MOVE measures, how its Treasury options components are weighted, and why comparing its level directly with VIX can be misleading. Mark and Dan also explore what it means when stock and bond volatility diverge, how to interpret implied daily moves, and the usefulness and limitations of MOVE as a market indicator.

Plus, the latest listener poll on NVIDIA's stock buyback and a Market Taker Question of the Week: Do shorter-term options always offer sellers faster time decay?

When does an option actually stop trading, and what happens when expiration arrives? Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli trace how the calendar grew from monthly expirations to weeklies, daily SPX options, and Monday and Wednesday expirations in select stocks and ETFs.

Along the way, they explain why traditional SPX monthly options can stop trading on Thursday yet settle on Friday morning, how cash settlement differs from physical settlement, and why expiration day can catch traders off guard. They also share stories from the trading floor and answer listener questions.

Yacht rock piracy meets options strategy on this episode of Options Boot Camp.

Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli break down Dan's "net zero roll" for cash-secured puts, including how traders can roll down and out while targeting little or no net premium on the adjustment. They also tackle a fresh batch of listener questions covering how implied volatility can help determine whether to buy calls, sell puts or use call spreads; how much open interest and volume really matter when selecting a strike; what steep put skew can reveal when VIX isn't moving; and whether traders put too much emphasis on dealer gamma positioning.

Plus, the Boot Camp crew digs into pin risk in the era of daily and short-dated expirations, looks at which options strategies might deserve the full book treatment, checks in on the latest 0DTE butterfly poll results and, naturally, investigates Dan's alleged yacht rock piracy on the Chicago River.

The iron butterfly is getting a 0DTE makeover.

On this episode of Options Boot Camp, Mark Longo is joined by Dan Passarelli and John Kmiecik from Market Taker Mentoring for a deep dive into the growing world of zero-days-to-expiration iron butterflies.

Why are traders turning to this classic options strategy for ultra-short-term trades? John breaks down how he approaches 0DTE iron butterflies, including timing his entry after the open, choosing spread widths, setting profit targets, managing risk, and taking advantage of changes in implied volatility and time decay.

The crew also explores 0DTE double calendars, whether these strategies could work in single-stock options, managing a calendar that has moved away from its strike, and the most overrated advice in options trading.

Is the earnings volatility worm finally starting to turn?

On this episode of Options Boot Camp, Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli dig into the latest earnings options data and examine whether the recent run of dominance for premium buyers may finally be losing steam. They break down how actual earnings moves are stacking up against what the options market priced in, whether traders should be rethinking the buy-vs.-sell premium equation, and how Dan approaches earnings trades using time spreads, double calendars and other volatility strategies.

Plus, the Boot Camp instructors tackle IV Rank, zero-DTE butterflies, buy writes, options volume by exchange, binary options and prediction markets, and much more.

On this episode of Options Boot Camp, Mark Longo and Dan Passarelli tackle the challenges and opportunities of trading options in a low-volatility market.

Should you still be selling premium when volatility is cheap, or does low vol make buying options more attractive? Are single-stock options offering better opportunities than index options in the current dispersion environment? The Boot Camp instructors break down how they're approaching these markets and where they're still finding opportunities.

Then they examine the strange recent VIX glitch that briefly sent the cash index soaring while VIX futures barely moved. What caused it? Could traders actually take advantage of it? And could resting "wishlist" orders help you capitalize when markets briefly get out of line?

Plus, the instructors discuss the biggest forces driving the market right now, revisit perpetual futures, and share an update on the potential Options Boot Camp reboot.

Topics include:

• Trading options in a low-volatility environment
• Buying options vs. selling premium when volatility is cheap
• Single-stock options vs. index options
• Dispersion and individual-stock volatility
• The mysterious VIX glitch
• Why VIX futures didn't follow the cash spike
• Using resting "wishlist" orders for unusual market moves
• Perpetual futures and market liquidity
• What's driving the market right now