AAPL just traded at $234, and earnings are in twelve days. Do you buy a call, sell a covered call against shares you already own, or wait for the IV to cool off? Draw the profit curve for each move, price it with the same math professionals use, and see exactly what you're risking — before you risk it.
Educational only. Options involve substantial risk of loss.
01 · Learn by drawing
Every option strategy has a shape — and two of them. The solid line is your profit or loss at expiration; the dashed line is what the position is worth today, before time decay has done its work. The gap between them is theta, made visible.
Today-line is a Black-Scholes estimate using the DTE and IV sliders. As DTE approaches 1, watch the dashed line collapse onto the solid one — that is time decay.
02 · Understand the pricing
Five inputs decide what an option is theoretically worth. Move each slider and watch which Greeks react — that is the fastest way to build intuition. And when you already know the market price, solve it backwards for the implied volatility.
In real markets you observe the price and infer the volatility. Enter what an option actually trades for (same stock, strike, expiry and type as the sliders above) and solve for the IV the market is charging.
03 · Form a view
Professionals do not start with "which option should I buy." They start with a view on direction, timing, and volatility, then pick the structure that expresses it.
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04 · The fundamentals
If you internalize nothing else, internalize these.
An option loses value every single day, and the decay accelerates in the final month. Being right about direction but wrong about timing still loses money. Check theta before you buy — or watch the dashed line in the visualizer sink as you drag DTE toward 1.
Options on a stock everyone expects to move are expensive. Buying calls right before earnings often loses even when the stock jumps, because implied volatility collapses after the event. Use the IV solver above to see what the market is really charging.
A "$2 option" costs $200 and can go to zero. Position sizing — risking only what you can afford to lose entirely — matters more than any prediction.
05 · Real numbers
Delayed quotes for any US ticker, straight from the CBOE — every strike and expiration, with the implied volatility the market is actually charging. Click any contract to load its real numbers into the calculator above and compare theory against reality.
Quotes are delayed at least 15 minutes (CBOE). Shaded cells are in the money; the highlighted strike is closest to the current price. Educational use only — verify with your broker before trading.
06 · Research a real name
Type any US ticker and pull real market data — recent news (Finnhub), earnings history (Finnhub), and options positioning (the CBOE chain) — interpreted by AI into study-worthy observations. No web search involved: the AI only reasons over verified data, it doesn't guess from search snippets. Results are cached for 15 minutes.
Observations to research further, not recommendations. Verify dates and figures before trading.
07 · The so-what step
The live setup — price, 30-day implied volatility, next earnings date — is computed directly from CBOE and Finnhub, not asserted by the AI. Gemini only supplies the reasoning on top: how different market views translate into option structures, with trade-offs and the classic trap. Every structure links straight back into the visualizer, so you can study its shape before you ever think about trading it.
Educational analysis of structures, not investment advice. Nobody — human or AI — can reliably predict which option will make money.