u/Tesla_laughs

​

Simple reason. A small live account doing 0DTE options is basically paper trading with real emotions attached. The math doesn't work for me. You're risking $25 to make $40 on a $500 account. One bad NFP morning and you're down 20%. That makes position sizing difficult for the trades I wanted to take.

The attached July 16 trade history shows SPY calls and puts closing at +$1132, -$347, +$182.50 and +$1186. These are all individual trade results, not payouts.

I couldn’t have taken the same positions on a $500 account. But larger dollar profits don’t prove better trading either. More buying power increases what I can lose, so the room above my drawdown floor mattered more than the advertised account size.

Vanquish’s Advanced Options plan has no evaluation time limit or firm imposed daily loss limit. It still has an end of day trailing drawdown, a 30% daily consistency requirement and a minimum of 4 trading days.

Having no deadline helps me sit out when I don’t see a setup. I also set my own daily loss limit. Being allowed to keep trading doesn’t mean I should keep going after a rough session. Trust me when I say, took a long time to understand this.

Evaluation profits aren’t withdrawable. I have to qualify for a funded account and meet its payout requirements. Evaluation fees and any resets also come out of my own pocket, so repeated attempts can become expensive.

The psychological pressure is different from trading my savings, too. I still need to take the losses seriously and follow the same sizing and exit rules.

For me, this route made sense while working on those habits. Before adding more money to a live account, I want a longer record of consistent decisions instead of a couple of wins.

What made you choose an eval over your own live account? And what would make you switch back?

Monday already set the tone. 10Y yield is hovering around 5.2% (highest since 2007), and Brent jumped back above $98 after the Iran talks fell apart over the weekend. SPX and Nasdaq both closed red.

Now we’re heading into a week packed with inflation, manufacturing, and labor data. Here's how I'm approaching each session this week.

Key levels on SPY:
Monday's low around $763.70 is the immediate downside reference. On the upside, I'm watching the $771.35 area, Friday's close, and whether SPY can reclaim it.

With yields and oil already elevated, I want to see how price reacts around those two as the data comes in.

On my calendar (releases & earnings):

Today (Sep 29): Consumer Confidence + JOLTS both drop at 10 AM ET.

JOLTS openings are seen around 7.23M vs 7.27M prior. Consumer Confidence consensus is ~89.2, coming off two straight misses in July and August. Not trading off either number directly, they're both lower-impact prints, but I'll have them in the back of my head.

Sep 30, Wed: ADP at 8:15 AM ET + Core PCE at 8:30 AM ET & $MU earnings
ADP is just another labor-market read. I'm not using it to predict Friday's NFP. 

8:30 is the window. Core PCE is expected at 0.3% m/m vs 0.2%, still 3.3% y/y. It’s the first inflation read since the Fed's hike, and with the 10Y already at 5.2%, I don't want a position open when it prints. I'll stay flat, trade after it settles.

Micron after close is the second-order piece. $MU options are pricing close to an 8.5% move into Friday expiry. Call positioning is already stretched, so a beat alone may not be enough.

Oct 1, Thru: Jobless Claims at 8:30 AM ET & ISM at 10:00 AM ET. Nike earnings after close.
Neither forecast points to a major shift on its own. ISM is the one I’ll keep on the radar during the session if I’m trading SPY 0DTE. 

I’m watching Nike into Friday. Revenue is expected at $11.33B (down 3% YoY), with EPS down 10% to $0.44. It’s trading around $36, near 12-year lows, and options are pricing in an 8-10% swing. China sales and gross margins will be the big tells.

Oct 2, Fri: Nonfarm Payrolls, 8:30 AM ET
Friday is the biggest event of the week. Payrolls are expected around 90K after 162K last month, a sharp step down. Unemployment is expected flat at 4.1%. Average hourly earnings are also expected at 3.1% YoY, unchanged. 

Since the report lands before the open, I'll see how SPY reacts at the bell and stay smaller on my funded account. No need to force a trade just for the sake. If I trade, I'll start at half size and only consider adding once price reclaims a level and holds.

How are you guys approaching NFP and PCE this week?

Full week. Heavy data. NFP on Friday. Here's how I'm thinking about it.

Tuesday’s ISM and JOLTS numbers are already out, and Wednesday’s ADP report came in at 38K versus 47K expected. I’m not using that to predict Friday’s NFP number, though. ADP and the official payroll report can tell very different stories.

Thursday has unemployment claims at 8:30 a.m. ET and ISM Services PMI at 10 a.m. The 10 a.m. release matters more to my execution because it can hit while a spy 0dte position is already open. I’ll avoid entering immediately before it and wait for price to settle afterward.

Thursday Unemployment Claims at 8:30am 205K consensus versus 203K prior. Relatively stable. ISM Services PMI at 10am 54.1 consensus matching previous exactly. Thursday is manageable but back to back data means sizing down slightly around release windows.

Friday is the highest scheduled event risk of the week. NFP, average hourly earnings and the unemployment rate all drop at 8:30 a.m. ET. Payrolls are expected to rebound to roughly 55K after the previous -23K reading. Average hourly earnings at 0.3% versus prior 0.1% wage growth acceleration alongside NFP is a Fed-sensitive combination. Unemployment rate expected flat at 4.1%.

For my funded account, the plan is either to sit Friday out completely or wait until at least 10:30 a.m. If I trade, I’ll start at half size and only consider adding after an ORB break and retest confirms the direction.

Overall bias

NFP going from -23K to a projected +55K is a big swing. If that prints anywhere close to consensus it changes the rate narrative slightly. Not coming in with a strong directional lean letting the data talk first and ORB tell me which side to be on each day.

Would you trade spy 0dte after NFP or sit Friday out?

I opened a SPY 0DTE iron condor while SPY was trading around 685.50. You can see the positions in the image.

Had an iron condor position a while back. Two contracts, all with the same-day expiration. Every strike was OTM when I opened it, although the short put was only about $0.50 below SPY. The maximum-profit range at expiration was between the two short strikes, 685 and 695. 

Then price started pushing toward one of the short strikes. That's when I realized the entry was the easy part. Management is where this strategy actually lives or dies and I didn't have a clear enough plan for it.

Eventually stepped away from running condors regularly because of not having confident answers to the management questions. 

The specific scenarios that gave me trouble

A slow drift toward the 685 short put was one thing. I could see it happening and at least had some time to consider closing or adjusting.

A sudden intraday move was completely different. Economic data, a Fed speaker, or an unexpected headline can push SPY through a short strike quickly. Condor that was perfectly positioned 30 minutes ago is now getting destroyed on one side while the other side premium has basically gone to zero.

These are the situations where I never have a clean answer. And not having a clean answer in real time when the position is bleeding is a bad place to be.

What I'm trying to understand

At what point do you manage a tested 0DTE iron condor? Is your trigger SPY touching the short strike, the short option reaching a particular delta, or the position hitting a certain percentage of maximum loss?

If SPY has already moved through the short strike, is adjusting still worthwhile? Would you close the entire position, close the tested vertical, move the untested side inward to collect more credit, or roll the tested side into another expiration?

I’m mainly trying to understand whether adjusting a tested 0DTE iron condor is worthwhile or whether accepting the defined loss is usually the cleaner decision.

Most traders read the profit target and the drawdown limit. Think that's the whole rulebook. 

Two rules almost caught me off guard: the drawdown structure and the consistency rule. Both work differently depending on whether you’re on the Basic or Advanced options eval.

Drawdown: Basic vs Advanced. 

The basic plan uses an intraday trailing drawdown. Floor follows your account up as you make money. Start with a $50k eval account and a $2,500 drawdown. The floor begins at $47,500. 

Here’s the part that matters during an actual trade. Say an open position is showing $600 in unrealized profit. That pushes your equity peak $600 higher, so the drawdown floor moves up with it. If price pulls back and that unrealized profit drops from $600 to $300, you’ve given back $300, but the floor doesn’t move back down.

That last part is what catches people. The drawdown can trail profits you haven't actually realized yet.

Advanced plan works differently. It uses an end-of-day trailing drawdown, so the floor adjusts using your closing equity rather than every intraday high.

For example: account opens at $100k with $5k drawdown, floor at $95k. Day 1 closes at $102k; floor moves to $97k. Day 2 closes at $100,500; floor stays at $97k, doesn't drop back. Day 3 closes at $104,250 floor moves to $99,250.

Two things matter here. One floor only moves up, never down. Two it adjusts on closing balance not intraday peaks, because an intraday profit spike doesn’t immediately raise it. This can be more forgiving for 0DTE options where intraday swings can be large.

But end-of-day trailing doesn’t mean the floor is only enforced at the end of the day. Breaching the current loss limit intraday can still disable the account. End of day refers to when the floor adjusts, not when it applies.

Consistency rule also different between plans.

On Basic, no single winning trade can account for more than 30% of total P&L. 

On Advanced plan, no single day can be more than 30% of total profits at the end of the eval. 

Say profit target is $5,000 and you hit it over 10 days. One of those days you made $1,700. 30% of $5,000 is $1,500. That one day was too large a percentage. Eval flags as inconsistent even though the target was hit.

The important thing is that the account doesn't fail. You have to continue trading until that $1,700 represents 30% or less of the total. In this case, total profit would need to reach at least $5,666.67.

What this means

On Basic, track your live equity peak and current drawdown floor.

On Advanced, track both the current floor and the closing equity that could move it higher.

On both don't let one day or one trade carry the whole eval. Even if it feels like a gift, an outsized day creates a consistency problem that follows you to the end.

Which plan are you using, and which rule did you find more confusing?

Most discussions about buying 0dte options start with the same warning – theta is working against you from the moment you enter.

Technically true, but imo it’s incomplete. 

Look at this trade [image1]. Price pulled back into the 9/21 ema and held the zone as support. The 9 ema remained above 21 ema, both were sloping higher, and the bullish structure had not broken.

I entered 20 spy 744 calls after the hold rather than chasing the initial move. spy continued higher and hit my target in under 10 minutes.

The session finished at +$752 [image 2]

During this trade, theta was still reducing the option’s value while i held the position. It simply was not dominant during this particular trade because the directional move arrived quickly enough to outweigh it.

If spy had moved sideways after my entry, the outcome could have been very different. Let’s say i would be dealing with lack of follow through and continued time decay

That is why i do not see 0dte trading as “theta versus direction”. It’s simply a race b/w the size and speed of the underlying move and the premium being lost while you wait.

Sharing a list of combination that damages my long 0dte trades:

• Entering in the wrong direction
• Chasing after most of the move has already happened
• Getting the direction right but entering too early
• Staying after the setup loses momentum
• Holding after the original invalidation level breaks
• Using too much size for such a short-duration contract

How does this apply to an options eval account?

I took this trade in advanced options eval account. The evaluation buying power made the dollar result larger, but it did not improve the setup. 

The same principle applies in a funded account or if you’re using a personal account - more size magnifies a bad entry just as quickly as it magnifies a good one. Protecting the drawdown limit still matters more than trying to force a large day.

My takeaway from this setup - a short, directional 0dte trade, timing and immediate follow-through can matter more.

What's actually killing your 0dte trades theta or direction? Be honest. 

trading can be all-consuming if you let it. especially during the weekend, you realize how mentally taxing it can be.

when you’re trying to pass an eval account and eventually get to a funded account, every missed chart or setup starts to feel important. it’s easy to spend Saturday replaying the week, checking charts, and planning Monday before you’ve actually reset.

if you trade US options around college, or other personal commitments, every spare min starts to feel like it should go towards the market. for a while, I felt guilty whenever I wasn’t looking at charts.

now I try to treat the weekend as part of the process. i review the week, note what I did well or need work, map a few important levels for the next session, and then step away.

getting outdoors, exercising, watching football, meeting friends, and putting my phone down helps me reset. personally, more screen time never improved my plan. sometimes it just creates more chances to overthink or look for a trade that was never really there.

that matters even more in an eval account. the goal is to follow the plan well enough to pass and reach a funded account, not to let every red trade or missed move take over the rest of the week.

i’m still working on it, especially after a rough week, but some of my better decisions have come from having space away from the charts.

that said, what are you guys doing this weekend before the next session starts?

One thing I wish I'd accepted sooner is that I can't trade like someone who sits in front of charts all day. For a long time I'd compare myself to people posting SPY and 0DTE options trades throughout the session and feel like I was constantly missing opportunities.

The reality is I have a full-time job, responsibilities outside of trading, and limited screen time. That becomes even more important during an eval account, where forcing one unnecessary trade can damage the account more than missing a good setup.

A few things that have helped me manage both:

1. I used to check charts constantly throughout the day. Now I rely much more on alerts and let the market come to me. With options, especially 0DTE, opening the chart every few minutes usually makes me chase after every move. 
2. I'd rather understand 2-3 setups really well than try to trade everything. It also helps during an eval account because I am less likely to take a random trade just because I have a small window available.
3. Before the market opens, I identify the important levels, the setups I am interested in, my maximum risk, and the conditions that would invalidate the trade. 
4. Accept you'll miss trades. There will always be another breakout, runner or perfect options entry that happens while I am working. And guess what? Once I became more comfortable missing trades, i stopped forcing as many bad ones.

 

Sometimes the best trade is no trade. Some of my worst eval account decisions came from feeling that I needed to make something happen during the small window I had available.

So when do I turn the charts off?

I try to stop when:

• My planned trading window has ended
• My setup is no longer available
• I have reached my daily risk limit
• Taking another trade would put my eval account rules at unnecessary risk
• I notice that I am checking charts when I should be focused on work or the people around me

One thing that surprised me is how much my trading improved when I stopped thinking only about trading.

Regular exercise, getting outdoors, spending time with family and friends, and occasionally putting the phone down completely has probably improved my decision-making more than adding another indicator.

Still a Work in Progress

One area I still struggle with is consistency. Not consistency in showing up, but consistency in sticking to my plan. I'd love to say I've mastered that side of trading, but I definitely haven't.

With the weekend here, I’m trying to actually switch off instead of spending two days replaying trades or thinking about Monday’s setups.

For those balancing a full time job with an options eval or funded account, what does your routine look like?

Most traders look at price. Where did it go, how fast, what candle pattern formed. But price alone doesn't tell you why it stopped where it stopped.

Volume profile helps with that.

It's just showing you where actual trading happened. Not when. Where. That shift in thinking changes a lot, especially if you’re trading SPY 0DTE inside an eval account where one bad entry can mess with your drawdown buffer.

What the chart is actually telling you

Look at this. VAH at 739.00, VAL around 738.50. That's your value area where the bulk of volume got transacted. Price inside that range isn't doing anything interesting. Market accepted those prices.

That 7.29K bar around 738.70 is the real thing to notice. That's a HVN. Enormous amount of contracts traded right there. Price doesn't just cut through that level cleanly. It gets absorbed, slows down, sometimes just dies. Not because of some indicator signal. Because there's real supply and demand sitting there from actual transactions.

Then there are the gaps. Tiny bars, near zero volume. Those levels have no history. There’s less prior participation there. Price tends to move through those fast because there's nothing to stop it.

Why it actually matters

You can have a perfect looking SPY 0DTE and still lose because you walked straight into a HVN 40 cents above your entry. The trade wasn't always wrong, sometimes it can be location.

For a funded options eval, that matters even more. You don’t just need direction. You need clean location, because chop near heavy volume can burn entries, stops, and drawdown.

Volume profile just tells you where the traffic is before you drive into it. That's it. Not magic, just context that price charts alone don't give you.

Anyone else layering Volume Profile for SPY/options evals, or is this mostly a futures tool in your workflow?