SPX

The Mini-SPX option gives a smaller account index mechanics at SPY-sized notional — cash-settled, European, 60/40 taxed — at the cost of a thinner order book.

Every payoff diagram on the site in a single gallery, grouped by market outlook, with the max profit and max loss numbers under each chart.

One reference table for the two numbers that matter before any trade opens: maximum loss and maximum profit, with the breakeven formula for all 30 strategies in the library.

What changes hands when an option expires ITM: a cash transfer for index options like SPX, or 100 shares per contract for equity and ETF options.

The difference between European and American exercise, what early assignment does to a spread, and which products use which style.

How Section 1256 taxes broad-based index options: 60% long-term, 40% short-term on every gain, no matter how short the holding period.

The two SPX settlement clocks: PM-settled SPXW dailies that expire at the 4:00 PM close, and AM-settled third-Friday monthlies that settle on the Friday opening SET print.

The structural and tax differences between SPX and SPY options — settlement, exercise style, contract size, Section 1256 — and which one suits 0DTE index traders.

Opening and closing an iron condor means commission on eight legs — every round trip. Slippage is the variable tax on a 0DTE iron condor — it scales with the spread and the speed of the tape. Commission is the other tax, and it behaves differently. It’s flat, it’s certain, and it lands the same whether the market is calm or violent. You pay it to open and you pay it to close, every single trade, forever. ...

A four-legged fill rarely lands at the mid. The gap you give up is slippage. On paper, a 0DTE iron condor looks clean. You sell four legs, collect a credit, and let theta do the work. The decay curve is steep, the math is tidy, and the expected value pencils out. Then the fills come back, and the credit is smaller than the screen promised. ...