best iron condors

Complete Guide to the Best Iron Condor Option Entry Points

Do you know even if the stock price doesn't move, you can still profit by trading options?

If you combine selling Put Spread and Call Spread options, you can define a low-risk delta neutral trade.

Today, SlashTraders will show you how to use the Options Scanner to find entry points for high-probability and high-profit Iron Condor options. So you can trade neutral options strategies that work.

What Is an Iron Condor?

An Iron Condor works by selling a Put Spread and a Call Spread to define a range you can profit from. As long as the underlying price does not exceed or drop below the strike prices of Put and Call before expiration the four options contracts will depreciate in value and we profit as an option seller.

Let's recall the profit analyses of selling a Put Spread and a Call Spread. We receive a premium when we sell the Bear Call Spread. If the underlying price doesn't increase, the Call Spread value will depreciate and we earn a profit.

sell MRNA call spread
If the underlying price doesn’t increase, the Call Spread value will depreciate and we earn a profit.

But if the stock price increases beyond the Call strike, the maximum loss is the width of the Vertical Spread times 100 minus premium.

We also receive a premium when we sell a Bull Put Spread option. If the underlying price doesn't drop, the Put Vertical Spread will depreciate in value and we earn a profit.

sell MRNA put spread
If the underlying price doesn’t fall, the Put Spread value will depreciate and we earn a profit.

But if the stock price decreases below the Put strike, the maximum loss is also the width of Spread times 100 minus premium.

When we combine selling a Call Spread and a Put Spread to see why we trade Iron Condors. The Put Spread defines the lower boundary of the price movement. And the Call Spread defines the upper boundary of the price movement.

sell MRNA iron condor
By combining a short Call Spread and a short Put Spread we get an Iron Condor.

If the underlying stock price doesn't move beyond the boundaries, the Iron Condor strategy will be profitable. The maximum loss is also capped if we are wrong.

Maximum loss of an Iron Condor = width of the Vertical Spread strikes x 100 - premium collected

What Is the Difference Between Iron Condor and Strangle?

Even though both the Iron Condor and the Strangle are delta-neutral strategies, but they have different profit analyses.

By comparing the profit analyses of the strategies, we see both neutral options strategies profit from the lack of price movement.

iron condor vs strangle options
While the Iron Condor has a limited maximum loss, the Strangle has unlimited maximum losses.

While the Iron Condor has a limited maximum loss, the Strangle has unlimited losses if the underlying price move beyond the Put and Call strike prices.

When an Iron Condor loses, we can roll up or roll down the Vertical Spreads to repair the Iron Condor.

When the Strangle is losing, we can roll the options to the future to repaire the Strangle.

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When to Use Iron Condors?

When selling Iron Condors, we want both theta and vega to depreciate the options prices, so we can sell high price Iron Condors to open, and buy low price Iron Condors to close.

Theta is the changes to options value with respect to changes in time.

From our experience, selling OTM options with more than 30 days to expiration have a predictable time value decay. So we can be patient and earn a profit as time passes without much price fluctuation.

Gamma is the changes to delta with respect to changes in stock price. It is also the acceleration to options prices with respect to changes in stock price.

Gamma grows when the options are close to expiration, leading to big fluctuations in options value. So no matter our Iron Condor setup is profitable or not, we prefer to close the trade or roll it to the next month before 14 days to expiration, to reduce gamma risks.

Vega is the changes to options value with respect to changes in IV.

Since we want to sell high and buy low, we need to sell to open at high IV, then buy to close when vega causes the option's value to decay at low IV.

We also need to find underlying opportunities less prone to large fluctuations. We can do that by picking stocks with high market capitalisation to reduce the risk of manipulation.

Options Scanner Settings to Find the Best Iron Condor Stocks

Options Scanner is designed to find high probability and high return Iron Condors in seconds. Here are some tips to use the filtering function to find the best Iron Condor entry points.

options scanner iron condor filters
Use Options Scanner to find the best Iron Condor entry points.
  • We want to choose opportunities with greater than 30 DTE to get the safest theta decay and less gamma.
  • We can filter IV Perc >67% to find opportunities that have a high chance of contracting IV and vega in our favour.
  • By choosing Market Cap ($B) larger than 10 billion, we avoid choosing stocks that can get manipulated and explode like AMC.
  • A good idea is to eliminate stocks with depressed price movement, or in Squeeze, because IV will expand soon after.
  • We should also avoid underlying that have an upcoming Earnings Date in 30 days to reduce the chance of large fluctuations.
  • Finally, we can sort the Iron Condor ROC by descending order to get a shortlist of highest return Iron Condors.
high return 0.20 delta iron condors
The safest, most profitable 0.20 delta Iron Condors to trade right now.

Based on the Options Scanner filter settings, here is the list of the safest and highest return 0.20 delta Iron Condors at the moment.

The Best Iron Condor Entry Points Right Now

So we have a shortlist of the safest and high return Iron Condor opportunities, we can fine-tune the selection to get the best entry points.

We can use the Options Volume in the watchlist to find more liquid options opportunities. In the list of high return Iron Condors, MRNA has greater Options Volume than RIO, so we get better fills when entering and exiting trades. Let's trade an Iron Condor for MRNA.

mrna iron condor
MRNA is currently the safest, most profitable Iron Condor with a high Options Volume.

When we sell an MRNA Iron Condor that expires in 54 days, if the MRNA stock price does not exceed the short Put and short Call strike prices, we can make 58% maximum profit when the 4 options expire worthless.

sell MRNA iron condor ROC
A short Iron Condor for MRNA that expires in 54 days has a 58% maximum return.

Now you know how to use the Options Scanner to filter the best Iron Condor stocks to trade. Remember to use the scanner often to find high return neutral trades to sell, and profit from the lack of price movement.

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36 thoughts on “最完整Iron Condor鐵兀鷹選擇權交易指南”

  1. Great iron condor strategy! For exit point, say at 20% of initial credit, how do we set the exit point in IBKR?

    1. Hi,
      Iron Condors have long Call and Put contracts to limit the losses in the event of assignment.
      So the assignment risk is minimal.

  2. Gary Petersen

    Could you comment on exit strategies – specifically yesterdays exit from the MSFT 340/345 position? Your entry signals are pretty clear but knowing when to close out would seem as important. Thanks – I’m quite impressed with your general approach.

    1. Our exit strategy is to close at 10-20% of the initial credit.
      We usually do not close any vertical early on because we want to give the trades enough time to materialise.
      It’s a good idea to setup GTC closing orders at about 10% of the initial credit to minimise the stress of checking the market constantly for the exit.

      Another reason for not closing early is that once the price moves against our position, it is not easy to close unless we accept a very unfavourable bid/ask spread. Because the further the price moves away from ATM, the liquidity drops significantly.

      As for the MSFT trade, I entered MSFT without having had a solid signal (emotional decision) and as soon as I entered, it moved against me.
      Therefore, I exited the position to minimise the loss.

    1. Stephan LaBar

      I feel dumb but I figured it out lol so is there anything besides volume we should consider when picking one these stock results?

      1. Hi Stephan,
        We want to choose opportunities with greater than 30 DTE to get the safest theta decay and less gamma.
        IV Perc >67% to find opportunities that have a high chance of contracting IV and vega in our favour.
        By choosing Market Cap ($B) larger than 10 billion, we find stocks that are less likely to be manipulated in price.
        A good idea is to eliminate stocks with depressed price movement, or in Squeeze, because IV will expand soon after.
        We should also avoid underlying that have an upcoming Earnings Date in 30 days to reduce the chance of large fluctuations.
        Finally, we can sort the Iron Condor ROC by descending order to get a shortlist of highest return Iron Condors.

  3. Thanks Tony, I thought it’s better to buy at least 10 delta lower from sold strike either side to have quicker time decay, is that correct?

    1. Having wider strikes for Iron Condors gives you a more significant premium.
      But it does come as a trade-off of higher maximum loss if the trade goes wrong.

  4. Love your tips on finding the best stocks to trade iron condors
    We really need to avoid meme stocks when trading neutral option strategies

  5. Great article, thanks very much for the insightful read. Could you possibly speak more (or link to an article if you’ve already written on this) about how we can adjust the strikes of each leg so that we can obtain the maximum theta possible? In an ideal world, it would be nice to hold to expiration, but in the real world, my understanding is that it’s best to close a few weeks out or when you’ve met your profit objective. In short, how do we create the best IC setup to have the fastest decay?

    1. Thank you for your kind words.
      We like to have the inner strikes 0.20 delta on either side of the market price, and the outer strikes one step further out, shown in our Options Scanner.
      To get the best theta decay, we also choose the expiration at around 45 days.
      Yes, we usually close our trades around 14 days before expiration, or when we reached 50% or more profit.

    1. Yes, you’ll find that using the options scanner can help you consistently find high probability iron condors to trade

  6. 我很愛中立策略 但最近台指中立很難做 IV太低 幾乎收不到多少權利金
    但我沒投資過美股 更不用說選擇權了 加上本身不會英文 需要適應一下
    希望可以上手 這樣就不會只有台指選擇權能做了 而是更多選擇

    1. 當IV高時交易中立策略是不錯的選擇,不過現在IV偏低不適合進場
      美股交易期權的選擇很多,可以試試看

  7. Hi Tony, your pick is set short side at delta 20, how about long side? So strategy stated that short call put at delta 30, long call put at delta 16, what’s your opinion?

    1. Hi Nathan, I would choose the long side as the nearest strike further away from the short side.
      Since different stocks at different expiration have different step-sizes of the strikes (usually $5-10), I usually pick short strikes at 20 delta, and choose long strikes 1 step further out.
      This usually gives me the best ROC with balanced risk.
      Choosing 30 delta short and 16 delta long for higher ROC can work if we feel the underlying’s IV will compress before expiration.

    1. Short iron condor strategy works best when you expect the underlying price to not fluctuate a lot
      So we sell iron condors when the IV percentile is high, as we expect the high IV to regress to a lower IV in the near future
      And we’ll profit from vega

  8. 謝謝分享這麼簡單易懂的鐵兀鷹交易方式,讓我也想試試看中性的選擇權交易策略了

  9. Thank you for sharing the Iron Condor tips.
    How do you pick the minimum ROC for Iron Condors to make the profit/risk balance worthwhile?

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