Debit Spread
An options strategy combining a bought and a sold option for a net cost, with defined risk and reward.
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The Butterfly Spread
The butterfly is a defined-risk, three-strike strategy that profits when the underlying finishes near a chosen central price. This lesson builds the long call and long put butterfly, shows the tent-shaped payoff, then covers the iron butterfly (its credit-based cousin) and the broken-wing butterfly (a skewed version that can be opened for a credit), with worked numbers and how to practise each in the Options Lab.
Calendar Spreads
A calendar spread sells a near-dated option and buys a longer-dated one at the same strike, profiting from the faster decay of the near leg if price sits near the strike. This lesson builds call and put calendars, explains why they are long time-decay and long volatility, shows the curved payoff at the near expiry, covers the diagonal variation, and shows how to rehearse them in the Options Lab.
0DTE & Short-Dated Options
Zero-days-to-expiration options — contracts that live and die in a single trading session — have grown from a curiosity to roughly half of all S&P 500 index-option volume. This lesson explains what 0DTE, 1DTE and weeklies are, why their gamma and theta behave so violently, the crucial difference between cash-settled index and physically-settled stock options, and the risks that make them a professional's precision tool and a beginner's fast way to lose money.
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