Options Chain
The Options Chain tab shows you live options pricing data — the same data the bot uses to find and evaluate trades.
What is an Options Chain?
An options chain is a table of all available option contracts for a given stock or index, organized by:
- Expiration date — When the options expire
- Strike price — The price level of each contract
- Calls on one side, puts on the other — Calls are on the left, puts on the right
Using the Options Chain
Select an Underlying
Choose from a dropdown of popular symbols: SPY, QQQ, IWM, DIA, AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA, AMD, META.
Select an Expiration
After picking a symbol, a list of available expiration dates appears. Select one to load that expiration’s chain.
Reading the Table
For each option contract, you’ll see:
| Column | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Strike | The price level of the option |
| Bid | The highest price someone is willing to pay (what you’d get if you sell) |
| Ask | The lowest price someone is willing to accept (what you’d pay if you buy) |
| Last | The most recent trade price |
| Volume | How many contracts have traded today (higher = more liquid) |
| Open Interest | Total outstanding contracts (higher = more established) |
| Delta | Probability-related measure (see Greeks) |
| Gamma, Theta, Vega | Other Greek values for the contract |
Color Coding
- Strikes near the current underlying price (at-the-money) are typically highlighted
- Green/red arrows indicate price direction (up/down from previous)
Why Does This Matter?
The Options Chain helps you:
- Verify the bot’s trades — Look at the chain to see if the options the bot chose have good liquidity and reasonable pricing
- Understand bid-ask spreads — Wide spreads mean higher trading costs. If the bid is $1.00 and the ask is $1.50, you’d get filled somewhere in between — the wider the spread, the worse your fill.
- Explore potential strategies — See what kind of premiums are available at different strikes and expirations
- Check liquidity — Volume and open interest tell you how actively traded an option is. Higher is better.
💡 Tip: Before creating a new strategy, check the options chain for your chosen underlying and DTE. Make sure there’s decent volume and tight spreads at the delta levels your strategy targets.
What to Look For
- Tight bid-ask spreads — A spread of $0.05-$0.20 on SPY options is normal. Over $1.00 is concerning.
- Good volume — Options with 0 volume today might be hard to fill at a fair price
- Open interest over 100 — Very low open interest can mean illiquid options
- Delta values — Find the strikes that match your strategy’s delta targets