SabrTrader Documentation

Options Workstation: Option Chain, Strategy Builder & Analyzer

The Options Workstation in SabrTrader is the combination of the Option Chain window, the built-in Strategy Builder, the Analyzer tab, the P&L risk profile curve and the chain-aware AI Analyst, all running inside one broker-connected workspace. It lets you read a live chain, construct single-leg and multi-leg structures by clicking strikes, inspect the resulting risk profile, and route the order to a connected broker such as Charles Schwab/thinkorswim or Interactive Brokers without leaving the platform. This page documents every control in the chain and analyzer, defines every options concept used, and gives a complete end-to-end workflow from chart context to placed trade.

Overview: What the Options Workstation Is

The Options Workstation is not a single window. It is the working combination of four SabrTrader components used together:

• Option Chain window — the live grid of all listed calls and puts for one underlying, organised by expiration and strike.
• Strategy Builder — the panel inside the chain that turns clicked strikes into single-leg or multi-leg structures (verticals, butterflies, broken-wing butterflies, calendars, strangles and custom combinations).
• Analyzer tab — a dedicated workspace layered on the chain for editing strikes, inverting structures, adding legs and reading the P&L risk profile curve at larger scale.
• AI Analyst panel — a chat panel that can read the loaded chain and answer questions about skew, term structure and where premium is richest.

Two entry points

Both options tools launch from the Control Center's New menu:

• New > Option Chain — use when you already have a directional or volatility thesis and a symbol in mind.
• New > Option Screener — use when you do not have a trade in mind and want to search for one. The screener is documented separately as the follow-up to this page.

The canonical workflow

1. Chart context — read the underlying on a chart first: gamma levels (put wall / call wall), volume profile value area levels, market structure.
2. Chain — open the Option Chain for that symbol, pick an expiration, check the one standard deviation expected move.
3. Build — construct the structure that expresses the thesis using the Strategy Builder.
4. Analyze — inspect the P&L curve in the Analyzer, adjust strikes and expirations, optionally invert or add legs, optionally ask the AI Analyst.
5. Place — set price (typically mid) and quantity, press Review, then Place Trade. The order routes to the connected broker account.

Broker-connected by design

The chain is not a standalone calculator. Quotes, Greeks, positions and order routing all come from the connected account. The demonstration uses a Charles Schwab / thinkorswim connection; Interactive Brokers is also supported for options data and execution. Because execution is live from the chain, treat every Place Trade press as a real order unless you have explicitly selected a simulated account.

Prerequisites: Data Sources and What They Limit

SabrTrader displays only the option data fields its connected feed supplies. This is the single most important prerequisite to understand, because it explains almost every "missing field" question about the option chain.

Broker-supplied vs dedicated options data

Broker-supplied options data is the quote and analytics stream that arrives as part of a brokerage connection (Schwab/thinkorswim, IBKR). It is convenient and usually included in the cost of trading, but it is optimised for order entry rather than analytics.

A dedicated options data feed is a specialist vendor stream focused on options analytics. It typically adds volatility statistics that broker feeds omit — most notably IV rank, historical IV series, richer surface data and open interest snapshots.

Field	Typical broker feed (Schwab / IBKR)	Dedicated options feed
Bid, ask, last, mid	Yes	Yes
Volume, open interest	Usually yes	Yes
Delta, gamma, theta, vega	Usually yes	Yes
Call IV / put IV per strike	Usually yes	Yes
Probability ITM	Yes (derived from delta)	Yes
Break-even columns	Yes (computed from strike + premium)	Yes
IV rank / IV percentile	Commonly not supplied	Yes
Historical IV term structure series	Rarely	Yes
Gamma exposure / dealer positioning levels	No	Via specialist provider (see below)

The 0DTE gamma levels provider

The gamma levels indicator in SabrTrader plots dealer gamma concentrations — the put wall and call wall — on a price chart. It is fed by a dedicated 0DTE options data provider whose coverage is limited to four index products: SPY, QQQ, NDX and SPX. On any other symbol the indicator has no data source and will not plot levels. This is a coverage limitation of the provider, not a platform fault.

Checklist before opening the chain

1. A broker or data connection that is entitled to options data is connected and showing a healthy status in the Connections manager.
2. The account you intend to trade is selected, and you know whether it is live or simulated.
3. If you rely on IV rank or volatility-surface analytics, a dedicated options feed is connected in addition to the broker.
4. If you want gamma levels on the chart, the symbol is SPY, QQQ, NDX or SPX.

Chart Context First: Gamma Levels, Put Wall, Call Wall and Value Area

The chain answers "which contract", not "should I trade". Form the thesis on the chart first.

Gamma exposure is the aggregate sensitivity of options dealers' hedges to movement in the underlying. Dealers who are short options must buy as price rises and sell as price falls; dealers who are long options do the opposite. Where large open interest concentrates, this hedging flow becomes large enough to shape intraday price behaviour.

Put wall

A put wall is a strike carrying unusually heavy put open interest. Dealer hedging around that strike frequently produces buying pressure as price approaches from above, so the level often behaves as prospective support. It is a probabilistic tendency, not a rule.

Call wall

A call wall is a strike carrying unusually heavy call open interest. Hedging around it frequently damps upside continuation, so the level often behaves as a cap on the day's range.

Combining with the value area

The value area low (VAL) is the lower boundary of the price range containing roughly 70% of a session's traded volume, produced by the Volume Profile indicator. A sweep of a prior level is price trading through it to trigger the resting stop and breakout orders sitting there, then reversing.

In the demonstration, a 15-minute SPY chart shows price descending toward the put wall while simultaneously sweeping the previous session's value area low. That confluence — a dealer-support level and a swept prior reference — is the reason to consider a long structure. It is a context selection, meaning it narrows which side and which strikes to consider; it is not by itself an entry signal.

Practical reading rules:

• Treat the put wall as a zone, not a line. Use it to choose the short strike of a bullish credit structure or the long strike of a debit structure.
• Treat the call wall as the natural ceiling for a target or the short strike of an upside spread.
• Walls move. Open interest rebuilds daily on 0DTE-heavy names, so re-read the levels each session.
• Walls fail on macro catalysts. A CPI print or a Fed statement can overwhelm hedging flow entirely.

Opening and Laying Out the Option Chain

The Option Chain window is a grid of every listed call and put for one underlying, organised by expiration (rows grouped by expiry) and strike (one row per strike).

Opening the window

1. In the Control Center, open the New menu.
2. Select Option Chain. An empty chain window opens.
3. Type the underlying symbol into the symbol field — for example SPY — and confirm. The chain populates with the nearest expirations and strikes around the money.

Layout recommendations

• Dock the chain beside the chart of the same underlying. The chart supplies context (walls, value area, structure) and the chain supplies the instrument. Reading them side by side avoids switching windows mid-decision.
• Save the arrangement in a workspace. Window positions, column selections and chain settings persist with the workspace, so the layout reopens exactly as configured. See Platform Setup: Workspaces, Charts and Indicators.
• Give the chain vertical space. The P&L risk profile curve renders at the bottom of the window; a short window compresses the curve and makes break-evens hard to read.
• Run one chain per underlying. Open a second Option Chain window rather than repeatedly retyping symbols if you follow two products.

Chain Header: Price, Call IV, Put IV and One Standard Deviation

The header strip at the top of the Option Chain summarises the underlying and the volatility environment for the selected expiration. It is the fastest sanity check available before touching a strike.

Header field	Definition	How to use it
Underlying price	The current traded price of the underlying instrument.	Identifies the at-the-money strike and anchors every distance calculation.
Call IV	The implied volatility currently priced into the call side for the selected expiration.	Rising call IV relative to put IV indicates demand for upside.
Put IV	The implied volatility currently priced into the put side for the selected expiration.	Put IV materially above call IV is the normal equity-index condition and reflects downside skew.
1 standard deviation	The expected move: the price range implied by option premiums covering roughly 68% of outcomes through the selected expiration.	Sanity-check every strike against it before building.

Reading call IV versus put IV as skew

Implied volatility (IV) is the market's forward-looking volatility estimate embedded in an option's price. Volatility skew is the pattern of IV across strikes at one expiration. In equity indices, downside puts almost always carry higher IV than equidistant upside calls, because portfolio hedging demand concentrates in puts.

• Put IV > call IV (normal skew): downside protection is bid. Selling puts collects relatively richer premium; buying puts costs relatively more.
• Call IV ≥ put IV (flat or inverted skew): unusual in indices, common in single names before takeover speculation or squeeze conditions. Upside calls are expensive.
• Widening gap intraday: hedging demand is increasing, often alongside a falling underlying.

Using the one standard deviation figure

The one standard deviation move is derived from option pricing: roughly underlying price × IV × √(days to expiration / 365). It defines the band containing about 68% of modelled outcomes at expiration; two standard deviations covers about 95%.

Worked example. SPY at 640 with 14 days to expiration and 16% IV gives a 1SD move of approximately 640 × 0.16 × √(14/365) ≈ 640 × 0.16 × 0.196 ≈ 20 points. The 1SD range is therefore roughly 620–660.

Practical consequences:

• A long call struck above the upper 1SD boundary requires a better-than-68th-percentile move simply to reach break-even. The P&L curve will show a very flat profile.
• A short strike placed outside the 1SD band has a structurally higher chance of expiring worthless — the basis of most premium-selling structures.
• If your price target sits inside the 1SD band, a debit spread capped at that target is usually more efficient than a naked long option.

Expiration Bar and the Expiries Setting

An expiration date is the date on which an option contract stops trading and settles. Every option in the chain belongs to exactly one expiration.

The expiration bar

The horizontal strip across the top of the chain lists all available expirations for the underlying. Clicking one — for example Aug 21 — immediately reloads the grid to show only that expiration's strikes. This is the normal single-expiry working mode.

The Expiries count control

The Expiries setting controls how many expirations are displayed at once. Setting Expiries = 1 shows only the highlighted expiration. Setting Expiries = 4 stacks the highlighted expiration plus the next three chronologically, each as its own labelled block within the same scrolling grid.

Critical detail: the count is additional expirations counted forward from the highlighted one. If you highlight Aug 21 and set 4, you see Aug 21 and the three following expirations, not four arbitrary expirations. Row counts differ per block because each expiration lists a different number of strikes near the money.

When to use multi-expiry view

• Calendar spreads. You must see both the near-dated and longer-dated contract at the same strike to build and price the structure.
• Term structure reading. Term structure is how implied volatility varies across expirations for the same underlying. Stacking expirations lets you compare ATM IV week by week. Front-month IV above back-month IV (backwardation) usually signals an imminent event; back-month above front (contango) is the resting state.
• Event positioning. Comparing the expiration before and after an earnings date or economic release shows exactly how much event premium is being charged.

When to keep it at one

For a single directional vertical, one expiration is enough. Multi-expiry view multiplies row count and increases the chance of misreading which expiration a row belongs to — the most common chain-reading error.

Strikes Setting and the Puts / Calls / Both Toggle

Two display controls determine how much of the chain you see at once.

Strike count

The Strikes setting is the number of strikes displayed around the at-the-money strike. The demonstration uses 10 as a deliberate simplification. At-the-money (ATM) means the strike closest to the current underlying price; out-of-the-money (OTM) means the option has no intrinsic value at the current price (calls above spot, puts below spot).

Strike count	Best for	Trade-off
5–10	0DTE and near-dated directional trades, fast decisions	Wings of wide butterflies and far strikes may be off-screen
15–25	Premium selling at 20–30 delta, wide verticals	More scrolling, denser screen
40+	Surveying open interest distribution and locating walls manually	Substantial clutter; slower to render on wide chains

Puts / Calls / Both toggle

The display toggle controls which side of the chain renders:

• Both — calls on one side, puts on the other, sharing a central strike column. The default and the correct mode for building strangles, straddles, iron structures and for comparing call IV against put IV at the same strike.
• Calls only — halves the visible columns. Use for call verticals, call butterflies and covered-call work.
• Puts only — use for bull put spreads, protective puts and put butterflies.

Switching to a single side is a readability decision, not a functional restriction: the Strategy Builder can still add the opposite type through the add-leg control.

Column Chooser: Every Available Chain Column

The column chooser is the configuration dialog that lists every data field the chain can display, each with a checkbox. Ticking a box adds the column; unticking removes it. Changes apply to the live grid and persist with the workspace.

Opening it

1. Click Columns in the chain toolbar (or right-click a column header, depending on layout).
2. Tick or untick fields in the list.
3. Confirm to apply, or Cancel to leave the current layout unchanged.

Column groups

Group	Columns	What they tell you
Pricing	Bid, Ask, Mid, Last, Change, Bid size, Ask size	Executable price and liquidity. Mid is the reference for limit entry; bid-ask width is the direct entry cost.
Greeks	Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega (Rho where supplied)	Position risk sensitivities. See the Trading Concepts section for definitions.
Volatility	Implied volatility per strike (call IV and put IV)	Relative richness across strikes; the raw material of skew reading.
Activity	Volume, Open interest	Volume is today's contracts traded; open interest is contracts outstanding. Open interest locates walls and liquid strikes.
Probability	Probability ITM (calls and puts)	Model-implied chance the option finishes in the money.
Break-even	Call break-even, Put break-even	The underlying price at expiration at which buying that single option returns zero.
Position	Open position quantity, average price, position P&L	Overlays your existing exposure directly on the relevant strike rows.

Probability ITM explained

Probability of ITM is the model-implied chance that an option expires in the money. SabrTrader derives it from delta: the absolute value of delta is a close first-order approximation of the probability of finishing in the money. A 0.30-delta call has roughly a 30% modelled chance of expiring above its strike. It is a model output under lognormal assumptions, not a forecast, and it ignores skew adjustments and dividend edge cases.

Break-even columns explained

The break-even price is the underlying price at expiration where a position produces zero profit or loss.

• Long call break-even = strike + premium paid.
• Long put break-even = strike − premium paid.
• Short options invert the sign: a short put breaks even at strike − credit received.

The chain's break-even columns describe the single option on that row. For multi-leg structures, read break-evens from the P&L risk profile curve instead, because a spread has different (often two) break-even points.

Recommended starter column sets

Workflow	Columns to keep	Why
Directional (buying options/debit spreads)	Bid, Ask, Mid, Delta, Theta, IV, Break-even, Volume	Delta sizes the directional exposure; theta shows the daily cost of being wrong slowly; break-even sets the required move.
Premium selling (credit spreads, strangles)	Bid, Ask, Mid, Delta, Probability ITM, IV, Open interest, Vega, Theta	Probability ITM and delta pick short strikes; vega quantifies IV expansion risk; open interest confirms exit liquidity.
0DTE	Bid, Ask, Mid, Delta, Gamma, Volume, Open interest	Gamma dominates on expiry day; volume and open interest identify the strikes that will actually fill.

Start minimal. Every column you cannot name the use of is clutter that slows the decision.

Open Positions Displayed Inside the Chain

When the connected account holds options in the loaded underlying, those positions are reflected on their own strike rows in the chain. The position columns show quantity held, average fill price and current position profit or loss for that contract.

Why this matters

• Adjustments. Seeing the existing short strike in context of current price and delta shows immediately whether a position is under pressure.
• Rolls. A roll is closing a position in one expiration or strike and opening the equivalent in another. With the multi-expiry view enabled, the current position and the candidate roll target are visible in one grid.
• Avoiding accidental doubling. Before building a new structure, the position column tells you whether you are adding exposure to a strike you already hold.

Simulated versus live accounts

A simulated (sim) account is a paper-trading account used to test order routing and strategies without capital at risk. Positions taken in a sim account appear in the chain exactly as live positions do, which is deliberate — the rehearsal should look identical to the real thing. The consequence is that the chain alone does not tell you which environment you are in. Always confirm the selected account in the order ticket before pressing Place Trade.

The demonstration explicitly notes that the chain shown is connected to a sim account. Use the same discipline: name your workspaces so the environment is unambiguous.

Strategy Builder: Constructing Positions From the Chain

The Strategy Builder is the panel that converts chain clicks into a defined option structure and renders its risk profile. It sits below the grid inside the Option Chain window and is duplicated, at larger scale, in the Analyzer tab.

Build Call and Build Put

Build Call and Build Put are the starting controls. Pressing Build Call:

1. Selects the at-the-money call as the long leg.
2. Defaults to a short leg a couple of strikes above, producing a call debit vertical.
3. Immediately draws the P&L risk profile curve for that structure.

The default is a starting point, not a recommendation. Clicking a different strike in the grid reassigns the leg instantly — in the demonstration, moving the short strike to 780 redraws the profile with no confirmation step.

Changing expiration from the builder

Expirations can be changed two ways, with identical effect:

• Click a different expiration on the expiration bar at the top of the chain.
• Change the expiration field on the leg inside the builder.

Setting different expirations on different legs is what makes a calendar spread possible.

Structures available

Structure	Legs	Directional view	Primary driver
Long call / long put	1	Strongly bullish / strongly bearish	Delta, then gamma
Call vertical (debit)	2 calls, same expiry	Moderately bullish	Delta, capped both sides
Call vertical (credit)	2 calls, same expiry	Neutral to bearish	Theta and probability
Put vertical / bull put spread	2 puts, same expiry	Neutral to bullish (bull put) or bearish (bear put)	Theta (credit) or delta (debit)
Butterfly	3 strikes: long wing, 2 short body, long wing	Pin near the body	Theta and low realised movement
Broken-wing butterfly	3 strikes, unequal wing widths	Directional lean with skewed risk	Theta plus skew; often removes risk on one side
Calendar spread	2 same-strike options, different expirations	Neutral near the strike	Time decay differential and vega
Strangle	OTM call + OTM put, same expiry	Long: expect large move. Short: expect quiet range.	Vega and gamma (long) or theta (short)
Custom multi-leg	Any combination via add-leg	Any	Whatever the assembled Greeks produce

Adding a fourth leg to a vertical produces iron condors and condors; adding a put wing to a call structure produces ratio and jade-lizard style combinations. The builder does not restrict combinations — it prices and profiles whatever legs are present.

Invert, Add Leg and Clear

Three controls modify an existing structure without rebuilding it from scratch.

Invert

Inverting a strategy flips every leg from buy to sell and every sell to buy, reversing the entire risk profile. It is a single control and it is reversible — pressing it again restores the original.

• A long (debit) call spread inverts into a short (credit) call spread: limited profit becomes limited loss and the profit region moves to the downside.
• A long butterfly inverts into a short butterfly: a structure that profits from a pin becomes one that profits from movement away from the body.
• A long strangle inverts into a short strangle: a long-volatility position becomes a premium-collection position with risk outside the strikes.

Use invert as an analysis tool. Building the long version and inverting is the fastest way to see both sides of the same strike selection and decide which matches your view of volatility, not just direction.

Add leg

The add-leg control appends a call or a put to the current structure. The P&L curve, break-evens and net debit/credit update immediately. Typical uses:

• Turning a call vertical into a butterfly by adding a further short/long call.
• Turning a short call spread into an iron condor by adding a put spread.
• Adding a far OTM long option as a tail hedge on a credit structure.

After adding a leg, always re-read the curve. Adding an extra long option that the curve shows as near-worthless simply increases cost and commissions without changing outcomes.

Clear

Clear removes all legs and returns the builder to an empty state. Use it whenever you switch thesis — for example, moving from a call vertical to a bull put spread — rather than trying to edit legs one at a time into a different structure. Clearing is faster and eliminates orphaned legs left behind from the previous structure.

Reading the P&L / Risk Profile Curve

The P&L risk profile curve is a plot of the position's profit and loss across a range of underlying prices. The horizontal axis is the underlying price; the vertical axis is profit or loss in currency. The expiration curve shows the outcome at expiry; intermediate-date curves show the outcome earlier, where extrinsic value still exists.

What to read, in order

1. Where the current price sits. The marker for the current underlying price shows whether the structure starts in profit, at a loss, or near flat.
2. Break-even points. Where the curve crosses zero. A vertical has one; a butterfly, condor and strangle each have two. The distance from spot to break-even is the move required to make money.
3. Maximum profit. The highest point of the curve and the price at which it occurs. For a debit vertical this equals spread width minus debit paid.
4. Maximum loss. The lowest point. For a debit vertical this equals the debit paid. For short structures it is the width minus the credit received; for a short strangle it is theoretically unlimited on the upside.
5. Curve shape between those points. A steep curve means high delta sensitivity; a flat curve means the position barely responds to the moves you expect.

Live redraw

Every strike change, expiration change, leg addition and invert redraws the curve immediately. This is the core learning loop of the workstation: change one variable, observe how the profile responds. Moving a short strike one increment further out visibly widens max profit and narrows probability; changing expiration visibly changes how far the intermediate-date curve sits from the expiration curve, which is theta made visual.

Matching curve to thesis

Thesis	Curve you want	Warning sign in the curve
Modest bullish drift to a known resistance	Max profit plateau at or below that resistance	Max profit occurs above the 1SD upper bound
Price pins near a level into expiry	Peak centred on the level (butterfly)	Peak so narrow the price must land within a point or two
Bearish with limited downside conviction	Broken-wing profile with risk removed on the upside	Both tails carrying loss when only one was intended
Expect volatility expansion	Both tails profitable (long strangle)	Break-evens further apart than the 1SD move

Bullish versus bearish broken-wing butterflies

A broken-wing butterfly uses unequal wing widths. Widening the wing on one side changes the debit or credit and typically removes risk entirely on the opposite side. In the demonstration, the body (the two short options) is centred at 77, producing a bullish broken wing; recentring makes it symmetric again. The curve is the arbiter — if the flat, risk-free tail is on the wrong side of your thesis, the structure is inverted relative to your view.

The Analyzer Tab

The Analyzer tab is a dedicated strategy analysis workspace layered on top of the chain. It shows the same structure the builder holds, with more room for editing and a larger risk profile panel.

What the Analyzer adds over the in-chain builder

• Full-size P&L curve. Break-evens, max profit and max loss are readable at a glance rather than compressed into a strip.
• Leg-level editing. Strikes, expirations, quantities and buy/sell direction are editable per leg in a table, so an over-extended leg can be pulled back without rebuilding.
• Summary strip plus main panel. The structure summary and the profile are visible simultaneously, so a change to a leg and its consequence appear together.
• Structure comparison. Switching between a butterfly, broken-wing butterfly and vertical on the same strikes shows which shape best fits the thesis.

Typical Analyzer workflow

1. Build a rough structure in the chain (for example Build Call).
2. Open the Analyzer tab.
3. Pull in strikes that the curve shows are too far out of the money to contribute.
4. Try Invert to see the mirror structure.
5. Convert to a butterfly, then a broken-wing butterfly, checking which tail carries the residual risk.
6. Add a leg if a tail needs capping.
7. Only when the curve matches the thesis, move to the order ticket.

The Analyzer also handles multi-expiration structures. A calendar spread — selling a near-dated option and buying a longer-dated option at the same strike — is built by assigning different expirations to two legs, and the Analyzer prices and profiles it correctly. The same applies to diagonals (different strike and different expiration).

Placing the Trade From the Chain or Analyzer

The order ticket is built into both the chain and the Analyzer. There is no separate order window step for options.

Ticket fields

Field	Meaning	Guidance
Price	The limit price for the combined structure, expressed as net debit or net credit.	Start at mid — the midpoint between the combined bid and ask. On wide spreads, work the price rather than crossing.
Quantity	Number of spreads or contracts.	Size from max loss shown on the P&L curve, not from premium cost alone.
Review	Displays the assembled multi-leg order for confirmation.	Verify every leg: right, strike, expiration, buy/sell, quantity, account.
Place Trade	Submits the order to the connected broker.	Routes immediately. There is no additional safety prompt beyond Review.

Mid price and the bid-ask spread

The mid price is the midpoint between bid and ask and is the conventional starting limit for multi-leg orders. The bid-ask spread is the gap between the best bid and the best offer; on options it is a direct, unavoidable cost paid twice — once entering, once exiting.

• On liquid ATM SPY contracts the spread may be a cent or two; mid usually fills quickly.
• On far OTM or low-open-interest strikes the spread can be wider than the expected edge. If the round-trip spread cost exceeds a meaningful fraction of max profit on the P&L curve, the structure is not tradable at that strike.
• Never default to last price on a wide spread. Last is a historical print that may be stale and far from executable.

Multi-leg fill behaviour

A multi-leg order is submitted as a combination. Brokers generally attempt to fill it as a package at the net price, which avoids legging risk (getting filled on one leg while the other moves away). Consequences:

• A combination order may sit unfilled even while individual legs appear tradable, because the net price is not available.
• Improving the limit by one increment at a time is usually more efficient than jumping to the ask.
• Four-leg structures fill more slowly than two-leg structures. Build the simplest structure that expresses the view.

Live versus simulated — the discipline

Because the ticket sits inside the analysis window, the distance between exploring and executing is one click. Establish a habit:

1. Read the account name on the Review screen every time.
2. Keep sim and live in separately named workspaces.
3. Rehearse new structures in the sim account first, including the exit, so the fill behaviour and combination pricing are familiar before capital is committed.

AI Analyst on the Option Chain

The AI Analyst is a chat panel that receives the loaded option chain as context along with your prompt and returns written analysis. In the demonstration it is connected to Claude (Anthropic). Provider selection and API key setup are covered in AI Setup: Connecting an LLM Provider to SabrTrader.

What it can and cannot see

The AI Analyst can only reason about fields the chain actually contains. If the connected broker feed does not supply IV rank, the model will look for it, fail to find it, and report it as unavailable. This is not a defect in either the platform or the model — it is the data-source limitation described in the Prerequisites section, surfaced honestly rather than hidden.

Example prompt from the demonstration

Read this chain. Look at the skew, the term structure, and where premium is richest.

A useful response identifies whether put IV exceeds call IV and by how much, whether front expirations carry higher IV than back expirations, which strikes carry the highest IV relative to ATM, and which structures naturally suit that configuration. It will note IV rank as unavailable if the feed omits it.

Reusable prompt templates

Purpose	Prompt
Skew read	Compare call IV and put IV across the visible strikes for this expiration. Quantify the skew and say which side is being paid for.
Term structure read	I have four expirations loaded. Compare ATM implied volatility across them and tell me whether the term structure is in contango or backwardation and what event might explain it.
Premium location	Which strikes in this chain carry the richest premium relative to their distance from spot? Assume I am a net seller.
Structure selection	My thesis is a bounce from the put wall into the end of the week, with limited upside. Given this chain, propose three structures ranked by risk-adjusted fit, with strikes and expected max profit and max loss.
Expected move check	Using the one standard deviation figure in the header, tell me whether my chosen strikes sit inside or outside the expected move and what that implies about probability.
Risk review before entry	Here is the structure I built. List its maximum loss, maximum profit, break-evens, net Greeks, and the three market conditions that would hurt it most.
Adjustment planning	This short strike is now near the money. Given the current chain, what roll or adjustment options exist and what does each cost?
Liquidity screen	Flag any strike in my structure where open interest or volume suggests I will struggle to exit at a reasonable price.
Feed audit	List which analytics fields are missing from this chain and what they would have added to your analysis.
Plain-language explanation	Explain the risk profile of this broken-wing butterfly to someone who has never traded options, including what happens at each break-even.

How to use the output

Treat the AI Analyst as a reading assistant that compresses a dense grid into prose, not as a decision authority. Verify every number it cites against the chain and the P&L curve before acting. Its main value is speed: reading skew and term structure across four stacked expirations by eye takes minutes; asking takes seconds.

Worked Example: SPY Long Idea at the Put Wall

This end-to-end walkthrough reproduces the demonstrated workflow with explicit reasoning at each step.

Step 1 — Establish context on the chart

1. Open a 15-minute SPY chart on the Schwab (thinkorswim) connection.
2. Apply the gamma levels indicator. SPY is one of the four covered symbols (SPY, QQQ, NDX, SPX), so the put wall and call wall plot.
3. Apply Volume Profile and display the prior session's value area low.
4. Observe: price is descending toward the put wall and is sweeping yesterday's value area low. Thesis: a reactive bounce from the put wall is plausible.

Step 2 — Open the chain

5. New > Option Chain, type SPY.
6. Dock the chain beside the chart.
7. Set Strikes = 10, Expiries = 1, display Both.

Step 3 — Select the expiration and check the expected move

8. Click the target expiration on the expiration bar — a few days to two weeks out gives the bounce time to develop without paying long-dated premium.
9. Read the header: underlying price, call IV, put IV, one standard deviation.
10. Confirm that a realistic bounce target — for example the mid-range or the call wall — sits inside the 1SD band. If the target is outside 1SD, the thesis needs a bigger move than the market is pricing and the structure should be reconsidered.
11. Note whether put IV materially exceeds call IV. If it does, a put credit structure collects relatively richer premium than a call debit structure costs.

Step 4 — Build the structure

12. Press Build Call. The builder selects the ATM call long and defaults a short call a couple of strikes higher.
13. Move the short strike by clicking the strike that corresponds to your upside target — in the demonstration, 780. The P&L curve redraws instantly.

Step 5 — Read the curve

14. Confirm max loss equals the net debit and is within your per-trade risk budget.
15. Confirm the single break-even is reachable — ideally inside the 1SD band.
16. Confirm max profit occurs at or below the resistance you expect (call wall), so the structure is not relying on a move it will not get.

Step 6 — Test alternatives in the Analyzer

17. Open the Analyzer tab.
18. Press Invert to see the credit version. If put IV is elevated and the thesis is "not lower" rather than "clearly higher", a bull put spread may fit better than a call debit spread.
19. Try a butterfly centred on the bounce target. If the peak is too narrow to be realistic, widen it or move on.
20. Try a broken-wing butterfly. Check which side carries the residual risk; if the flat tail is on the downside while your thesis is bullish, the wings are the wrong way round.
21. If a tail needs capping, use Add leg. If the thesis has changed entirely, press Clear and start again — for example with a bull put spread.

Step 7 — Place

22. Set price to mid.
23. Set quantity so that quantity × max loss equals your intended risk.
24. Press Review. Verify each leg and the account name.
25. Press Place Trade. The order routes to the connected broker immediately.
26. After the fill, confirm the position appears on its strike rows in the chain.

Step 8 — Manage

27. Keep the chain open. The position columns show live P&L per leg.
28. If the underlying approaches a short strike, set Expiries = 2 or more and evaluate a roll against the next expiration in the same view.
29. Consider setting a conditional alert on the underlying at the put wall or call wall so management decisions are triggered by price rather than by watching.

Best Practices

Process

• Form the thesis before opening the chain. The chain answers "which contract and which structure", not "is there a trade". Direction, target, invalidation and timeframe should be decided on the chart.
• Separate directional trading from volatility trading. Directional trading profits from the underlying moving; volatility trading profits from implied volatility rising or falling. Know which one you are doing before choosing a structure — the same strikes can express either view depending on whether you buy or sell them.
• Sanity-check every strike against the 1SD expected move. If your profit region lies mostly outside 1SD, the market disagrees with your thesis at the pricing level.
• Use the Analyzer before placing, not after. The curve is a pre-trade instrument. Discovering that max loss is three times your budget after the fill is an avoidable error.

Layout and configuration

• Keep strike and expiry counts small. Ten strikes and one expiration is enough for most decisions. Increase deliberately for calendars and term-structure work, then reduce again.
• Build a minimal column set per workflow. Maintain separate saved layouts for directional, premium-selling and 0DTE work rather than one maximal layout.
• Dock the chain next to the chart of the same underlying and save the pair in a workspace.

Execution

• Start every limit at mid and work it. Never use last price as a limit reference on a wide spread.
• Prefer liquid strikes. Check volume and open interest before committing; exit liquidity matters more than entry liquidity.
• Test in sim first. Rehearse both the entry and the exit of any structure you have not traded before. See Platform Setup for sim account configuration.
• Size from max loss on the curve, not from the premium paid or the credit collected.

Learning

• Click through every structure. Build a vertical, invert it, convert it to a butterfly, break a wing, add a leg, clear it, build a strangle, invert that. Watching the curve respond teaches structure behaviour faster than reading definitions.
• Add a dedicated options feed if volatility metrics matter. If your process depends on IV rank, term-structure history or surface analytics, a broker feed alone will not support it.
• Log the curve, not just the fill. Recording expected max profit, max loss and break-evens at entry makes post-trade review meaningful. See Trade Performance Analytics and the AI Coach.

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Why it happens	Correction
Assuming missing IV rank is a platform bug	IV rank is standard on dedicated options platforms, so its absence looks like a defect.	IV rank is absent because most broker feeds do not publish it. Add a dedicated options data feed if you need it.
Treating gamma walls as guaranteed support and resistance	Walls often work, which builds false confidence.	Walls are hedging-flow tendencies. Size for the case where they fail and always define invalidation on the chart.
Building far-OTM legs the curve shows are near-worthless	Cheap options look attractive because the debit is small.	Read the curve. If the profit region requires a move well beyond 1SD, the probability is low regardless of cost.
Misreading which expiration a row belongs to	Expiries = N stacks additional expirations forward from the highlighted one, so similar strikes repeat down the grid.	Work at Expiries = 1 unless you specifically need multiple; verify the expiration on every leg in the Review screen.
Entering at last price on a wide spread	Last is displayed prominently and looks like a fair price.	Always price from mid. Last may be a stale print from hours ago.
Forgetting the account is live	The order ticket sits inside the analysis window; exploration and execution are one click apart.	Read the account name on Review. Keep sim and live in separately named workspaces.
Applying 0DTE gamma levels to unsupported symbols	The indicator is available in the indicator list for any chart.	Coverage is SPY, QQQ, NDX and SPX only. On other symbols it has no data and will not plot.
Building four-leg structures on illiquid strikes	The curve looks appealing on paper.	Each additional leg adds spread cost and fill difficulty. Confirm open interest on every leg before submitting.
Inverting a structure without re-reading the curve	Invert is a single click and feels like a minor change.	Inverting converts defined-risk debit structures into credit structures with different (sometimes much larger) maximum loss. Re-read max loss every time.
Confusing per-row break-even with structure break-even	The chain's break-even columns are prominent.	Chain break-even columns describe a single option. Multi-leg break-evens come only from the P&L curve.
Trusting AI output without verification	Prose reads more confidently than a grid of numbers.	Cross-check every cited strike, IV and probability against the chain before acting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does SabrTrader show 'IV rank unavailable' on my option chain?

Because the connected data feed does not supply it. IV rank is a statistic describing where current implied volatility sits within its own 52-week range, which requires a year of historical IV data. Broker feeds such as Charles Schwab/thinkorswim and Interactive Brokers typically publish current implied volatility per contract but not the historical IV series needed to compute IV rank. SabrTrader displays exactly what the feed provides, so the field is reported as unavailable rather than estimated. To obtain IV rank, connect a dedicated options data feed alongside the broker connection. The same principle applies to any Greek or analytic: if the source does not supply it, the platform cannot display it.

Which brokers can I use for options data and execution in SabrTrader?

Charles Schwab (including thinkorswim accounts) and Interactive Brokers both supply options chain data and accept multi-leg options orders routed from the Option Chain and Analyzer. The demonstration uses Schwab. Which analytic fields appear in the chain depends on the connected feed; broker feeds commonly omit IV rank and historical volatility statistics. A dedicated options data feed can be added in parallel when richer volatility analytics are required.

Which symbols support the gamma levels indicator?

The gamma levels indicator — which plots the put wall and call wall — is fed by a dedicated 0DTE options data provider whose coverage is limited to SPY, QQQ, NDX and SPX. On any other symbol the indicator has no data source and will not plot levels. This is a provider coverage limitation, not a platform restriction, and it applies regardless of which broker connection is active.

How do I change the number of strikes and expirations shown in the chain?

Two separate controls in the chain toolbar govern this. The Strikes setting sets how many strikes are displayed around the at-the-money strike (the demonstration uses 10). The Expiries setting sets how many expirations are stacked in the grid: with Expiries = 1 only the expiration highlighted on the expiration bar is shown; with Expiries = 4 the highlighted expiration plus the next three chronologically appear as separate blocks in one scrolling view. The count is always additional expirations counted forward from the highlighted one.

Can I place multi-leg options orders directly from the option chain?

Yes. After building a structure in the Strategy Builder or Analyzer, the order ticket in the same window accepts a price (defaulting usefully to mid), a quantity, then Review and Place Trade. The combination is submitted as a package to the connected broker account and routes immediately. Verify the account shown on the Review screen: if the connection is a live brokerage account, the order is a real order with no additional confirmation step after Place Trade.

What option strategies can the strategy builder create?

Single calls and puts, call verticals (debit and credit), put verticals including bull put spreads, butterflies, broken-wing butterflies, calendar spreads across different expirations, strangles, and arbitrary custom multi-leg combinations assembled with the add-leg control (which covers condors, iron condors, ratios and diagonals). Any structure can be reversed in one click with Invert, which flips every leg from buy to sell or sell to buy and mirrors the risk profile.

What does the probability ITM column mean and how is it calculated?

Probability of ITM is the model-implied chance that an option expires in the money — above its strike for a call, below its strike for a put. SabrTrader derives it from delta: the absolute value of delta is a close first-order approximation of that probability, so a 0.30-delta call shows roughly a 30% probability of finishing in the money. It is an output of an option pricing model under lognormal assumptions, not a forecast, and it does not account for skew adjustments, dividends or early-assignment effects on American-style contracts.

How do I read the P&L curve in the analyzer?

The horizontal axis is the underlying price and the vertical axis is profit or loss. Read it in five steps: (1) locate the current underlying price marker; (2) find where the curve crosses zero — those are the break-even prices; (3) find the highest point, which is maximum profit and the price at which it occurs; (4) find the lowest point, which is maximum loss; (5) judge the slope between them, which shows how sensitive the position is to price movement. The expiration curve shows the outcome at expiry; an intermediate-date curve shows the outcome earlier, while extrinsic value remains. Every strike, expiration, quantity or leg change redraws the curve immediately.

What is the difference between the option chain and the option screener?

The Option Chain is symbol-first: you already know the underlying and you use the chain to select an expiration, strikes and a structure. The Option Screener is criteria-first: you do not have a trade in mind and you search across symbols and contracts for opportunities matching filters. Both open from the Control Center's New menu. In practice the screener finds a candidate and the chain builds and prices the trade.

Does the analyzer support calendar spreads across different expirations?

Yes. A calendar spread sells a near-dated option and buys a longer-dated option at the same strike. In SabrTrader you assign different expiration dates to two legs — either from the expiration field on each leg in the builder or by selecting expirations on the chain's expiration bar — and the Analyzer prices and profiles the resulting structure. Setting Expiries to 2 or more makes both contracts visible in one grid, which is the easiest way to build one. Diagonals (different strike and different expiration) are built the same way.

How do I add or remove columns in the option chain?

Open the Columns control in the chain toolbar. The column chooser lists every available field with a checkbox: tick to add, untick to remove. Changes apply to the live grid and persist with the workspace. Available groups include pricing (bid, ask, mid, last), Greeks (delta, gamma, theta, vega), implied volatility, volume and open interest, probability ITM, break-even for calls and puts, and position columns showing your open exposure on each strike row. Keep the set minimal and maintain separate saved layouts for directional, premium-selling and 0DTE workflows.

Can I test options orders in a simulated account before going live?

Yes. A simulated (sim) account is a paper-trading account that accepts orders and records positions without risking capital. Structures built in the chain can be routed to a sim account exactly as they would be to a live account, and resulting positions appear on their strike rows in the chain just as live positions do. Because the chain looks identical in both environments, always confirm the account name on the Review screen and keep sim and live in separately named workspaces.

How do I invert a strategy from long to short?

Press the Invert control in the Strategy Builder or Analyzer. It flips every leg simultaneously — every buy becomes a sell and every sell becomes a buy — and the P&L curve redraws as the mirror of the original. A long call debit spread becomes a short call credit spread; a long butterfly becomes a short butterfly; a long strangle becomes a short strangle. Pressing Invert again restores the original. Always re-read maximum loss after inverting, because credit structures frequently carry a much larger maximum loss than the debit version they replaced.

What does the one standard deviation figure at the top of the chain represent?

It is the expected move: the price range implied by current option premiums that covers roughly 68% of modelled outcomes between now and the selected expiration. It is calculated approximately as underlying price × implied volatility × √(days to expiration / 365). Use it as a reality check on strike selection. If your profit region begins beyond the upper 1SD boundary, the market is pricing that outcome as unlikely; if a short strike sits comfortably outside the band, the structure has a structurally higher chance of expiring worthless.

Do I need a separate options data feed to get full Greeks and IV analytics?

Not for the basics. Broker feeds from Schwab and IBKR normally supply bid, ask, mid, last, volume, open interest, delta, gamma, theta, vega and per-strike implied volatility, which is enough to build, analyse and execute structures. A dedicated options data feed is needed when your process depends on statistics broker feeds typically omit — most commonly IV rank and IV percentile, historical implied volatility series and full surface analytics. Gamma levels on the chart are a separate case: they come from a 0DTE provider covering only SPY, QQQ, NDX and SPX.

What is the difference between call IV and put IV in the header?

They are separate implied volatility readings for the two sides of the same expiration. Their difference is volatility skew. In equity indices, put IV is normally higher than call IV because hedging demand concentrates in downside protection. A widening put-over-call gap indicates increasing demand for protection, often alongside a falling underlying. A flat or inverted relationship (call IV at or above put IV) is unusual in indices and typically signals speculative upside demand in single names. Skew determines which side offers relatively richer premium to sell and which side is relatively expensive to buy.

Why does the platform default a call vertical when I press Build Call?

Build Call selects the at-the-money call as the long leg and defaults a short call a couple of strikes higher, producing a call debit vertical as a starting template. This is a convenient default, not a recommendation. Click any other strike in the grid to reassign the leg, and the P&L curve redraws instantly. To hold a single long call rather than a spread, remove the short leg; to change the structure entirely, press Clear and start again.

When should I use a broken-wing butterfly instead of a standard butterfly?

Use a standard butterfly when you expect the underlying to pin close to a specific price and you want symmetric, defined risk on both sides. Use a broken-wing butterfly when you also hold a directional lean: widening one wing changes the net cost and typically removes risk entirely on the opposite side, so the structure can lose money on only one side of the market. Read the P&L curve to confirm which tail carries the residual risk — if the risk-free tail is on the side your thesis points toward, the wings are the wrong way round.

Can the AI Analyst place trades for me?

No. The AI Analyst reads the loaded chain and your prompt and returns written analysis. Order construction and submission remain manual: you build the structure, set price and quantity, press Review and press Place Trade. Use the AI output to compress reading time on skew, term structure and premium location, then verify every number it cites against the chain and the P&L curve before acting.

What are 0DTE options and does the chain support them?

0DTE options are options expiring on the current trading day. They are heavily traded on SPX, SPY, QQQ and NDX. The chain supports them like any other expiration: select the current date on the expiration bar. Two practical notes: gamma dominates the Greeks on expiry day, so delta changes very rapidly as price moves, making gamma and volume the most useful columns; and the 0DTE gamma levels provider that supplies the put wall and call wall on charts covers exactly these four symbols.

Troubleshooting

IV rank shows as unavailable, or Greeks columns are blank

SabrTrader displays only the fields the connected feed supplies. Check in this order:

1. Confirm the connection is active and healthy in the Connections manager.
2. Confirm the account is entitled to options market data with the broker. Missing entitlements produce blank or delayed analytic fields.
3. If only IV rank is missing while delta, gamma, theta and vega populate, this is expected on broker feeds — IV rank requires historical IV data that Schwab and IBKR generally do not publish. Add a dedicated options data feed.
4. If all Greeks are blank, the feed is likely delivering quotes only. Verify the data-source configuration for the connection profile.

Gamma levels do not appear on the chart

Confirm the symbol first. Gamma levels are supplied by a 0DTE options provider covering SPY, QQQ, NDX and SPX only; on any other symbol the indicator will not plot. If the symbol is supported:

1. Verify the 0DTE data provider connection is active.
2. Verify the indicator is applied to the chart and enabled in the indicator list.
3. Reload the chart to force a fresh data request.
4. Check the chart interval — levels are plotted as horizontal price levels and can be off-screen if the vertical price range is zoomed tightly.

The chain is empty or stale after changing the symbol

1. Confirm the symbol is spelled correctly and is a listed optionable underlying on the connected broker.
2. Confirm the broker connection status is connected, not reconnecting.
3. Re-enter the symbol to force a fresh subscription.
4. Check whether you have exceeded the connection's simultaneous market-data subscription limit; on IBKR this is the market data lines limit, which throttles or drops additional subscriptions.
5. Close and reopen the Option Chain window if the grid stays populated with prior-symbol rows.

Expirations are missing from the expiration bar

1. Check the Expiries setting: at Expiries = 1 only the highlighted expiration renders in the grid, which can look like other expirations are missing even though they are still listed on the bar.
2. Some brokers return only a subset of expirations by default. Reload the symbol.
3. Weekly and end-of-month expirations may not exist on all underlyings — only index products and large-cap names carry dense weekly series.
4. If a known expiration is absent entirely, the connection may lack the entitlement for that product class (for example index options versus equity options).

The broker rejects the multi-leg order

1. Check options trading approval level on the brokerage account. Spreads, naked short options and multi-leg structures each require progressively higher approval tiers.
2. Check buying power and margin. Credit spreads and short strangles reserve margin well above the credit collected.
3. Verify the price is a valid increment for the product and that a debit is entered as a debit and a credit as a credit.
4. Confirm the market is open for that product. Index options and equity options have different session hours.
5. Read the rejection text returned by the broker — it usually names the specific constraint.

Open positions are not displaying in the chain

1. Confirm the position columns are enabled in the column chooser; they are optional columns and can be unticked.
2. Confirm the correct account is selected — positions from a different account in the same connection will not show.
3. Confirm the position is in the same underlying as the loaded chain.
4. If the position is in an expiration outside the visible set, increase Expiries or click that expiration on the bar.
5. Reconnect the broker session if balances and positions are also missing elsewhere in the platform.

The Analyzer does not update after editing a leg

1. Confirm the edit was committed — some fields require pressing Enter or moving focus off the field before the change registers.
2. Check that the edited strike actually exists in the selected expiration; an invalid strike leaves the leg unresolved and the curve unchanged.
3. Confirm quotes are still streaming; if the feed has stalled, the profile cannot reprice.
4. Press Clear and rebuild the structure. This resolves orphaned legs left behind when converting between structure types.

The AI Analyst returns incomplete analysis or says data is missing

The model can only reason about fields present in the chain.

1. If it reports IV rank as unavailable, that is expected on broker feeds and is not an error.
2. Enable the columns the prompt depends on before sending — a prompt about open interest is unanswerable if the open interest column is not displayed.
3. Narrow the scope: a chain with four expirations and forty strikes is a large context. Reduce Strikes and Expiries for a focused answer.
4. Verify the AI provider connection and API key in Preferences. See AI Setup: Connecting an LLM Provider.

The multi-leg limit order sits unfilled at mid

1. Confirm every leg has genuine two-sided quotes; a leg with no bid cannot fill at a reasonable net price.
2. Improve the limit one increment at a time toward the natural price rather than jumping to the far side.
3. Check open interest and volume on each leg. Illiquid strikes may simply have no counterparty for the combination.
4. Reduce leg count. Four-leg structures fill materially more slowly than two-leg structures.
5. Avoid working combination orders in the first and last minutes of the session when spreads are widest.

An order was placed in a live account when a simulated account was intended

The order ticket sits inside the analysis window, so exploration and execution are separated by one click. Immediate action: flatten the position from the broker or the chain. Prevention:

1. Read the account name on the Review screen before every Place Trade.
2. Keep simulated and live setups in separately named workspaces, and do not mix both connections in the same workspace.
3. Where the broker supports it, restrict the live account's options approval level during learning phases.

Glossary

0DTE options

Options expiring on the current trading day, traded heavily on SPX, SPY, QQQ and NDX. Gamma dominates their behaviour and time decay is extreme.

Analyzer tab

A dedicated strategy analysis workspace in SabrTrader layered on the option chain, providing leg-level editing, structure comparison and a full-size P&L risk profile curve.

At-the-money (ATM)

An option whose strike is closest to the current underlying price. ATM options carry the most extrinsic value and the highest gamma.

Bid-ask spread

The gap between the best bid and the best offer. On options it is a direct cost paid twice — once entering and once exiting a position.

Break-even price

The underlying price at expiration at which a position produces zero profit or loss. A long call breaks even at strike plus premium paid; a long put at strike minus premium paid.

Broken-wing butterfly

A butterfly with unequal wing widths, which skews the risk profile toward one direction and often removes risk entirely on one side of the market.

Broker-supplied vs dedicated data feed

Broker feeds supply the quote and Greek fields needed to trade but commonly omit volatility statistics such as IV rank. Dedicated options feeds add historical IV and surface analytics. Options analytics in SabrTrader are limited to whatever the connected source provides.

Bull put spread

A credit vertical that sells a higher-strike put and buys a lower-strike put in the same expiration, expressing a bullish or neutral view and profiting from time decay if the underlying stays above the short strike.

Butterfly spread

A three-strike structure with two short options at the body and one long option at each wing, profiting when the underlying pins near the body at expiration.

Calendar spread

Selling a near-dated option and buying a longer-dated option at the same strike, trading the difference in time decay and the volatility term structure.

Call debit / call credit spread

A vertical spread built from calls. A call debit spread pays net premium and profits from the underlying rising; a call credit spread collects net premium and profits from the underlying staying below the short strike.

Call IV vs put IV

Separate implied volatility readings for the call side and the put side of the same expiration. The difference between them reveals directional skew and which side of the market is paying up for optionality.

Call wall

A strike carrying heavy call open interest that often caps upside movement because dealer hedging around it damps continuation higher.

Column chooser

The dialog listing every available option chain data field with a checkbox, used to add or remove columns from the grid. Selections persist with the workspace.

Delta

The rate of change of an option's price relative to a $1 move in the underlying. Its absolute value is also a close approximation of the probability that the option expires in the money.

Directional vs volatility trading

Directional trading profits from the underlying moving up or down; volatility trading profits from implied volatility rising or falling. The same strikes can express either view depending on whether options are bought or sold.

Expected move

The market-implied range for an underlying over a given period, derived from option premiums. Displayed in the SabrTrader chain header as the one standard deviation figure.

Expiration date

The date on which an option contract stops trading and settles. Every option belongs to exactly one expiration.

Gamma

The rate of change of delta as the underlying moves. High gamma means delta shifts rapidly, which drives dealer hedging flows and dominates option behaviour close to expiration.

Gamma levels / gamma exposure

Price levels at which large dealer gamma concentrations sit, derived from open interest. Hedging flow around them can make the levels act as magnets or barriers to price.

Implied volatility (IV)

The market's forward-looking volatility estimate embedded in an option's price, expressed as an annualised percentage. Higher IV means richer premium.

Inverting a strategy

Flipping every leg of a structure from buy to sell or sell to buy, reversing the entire risk profile in a single action.

IV rank

Where current implied volatility sits within its own 52-week range, expressed as a percentile, used to judge whether option premium is rich or cheap. It requires a year of historical IV data and is commonly absent from broker-supplied feeds.

Mid price

The midpoint between the best bid and the best ask, used as the conventional starting limit price for multi-leg option orders.

One standard deviation move

The price range implied by option premiums that covers roughly 68% of modelled outcomes through a given expiration, approximated as underlying price × IV × √(days to expiration / 365).

Open interest

The number of contracts outstanding at a strike, as distinct from the volume traded today. Used to locate gamma walls and to judge exit liquidity.

Option chain

A grid of all listed calls and puts for one underlying, organised by expiration date and strike price, with quotes, Greeks and analytics displayed per contract.

Out-of-the-money (OTM)

An option with no intrinsic value at the current underlying price: a call struck above spot or a put struck below spot.

P&L / risk profile curve

A plot of a position's profit and loss across a range of underlying prices, either at expiration or at a chosen intermediate date, showing maximum profit, maximum loss and break-even points.

Probability of ITM

The model-implied chance that an option expires in the money, derived in SabrTrader from delta. A 0.30-delta call shows roughly a 30% probability of finishing above its strike.

Put wall

A strike carrying heavy put open interest that often acts as downside support because dealer hedging around it generates buying pressure as price approaches.

Simulated (sim) account

A paper-trading account used to test order routing and strategies without capital at risk. Positions in a sim account appear in the option chain identically to live positions.

Strangle

An out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put in the same expiration. Long strangles profit from volatility expansion; short strangles collect premium and profit from a quiet range.

Strategy Builder

The SabrTrader panel inside the Option Chain that converts clicked strikes into single-leg or multi-leg structures, prices them and renders the resulting P&L risk profile curve.

Strike price

The price at which the option holder may buy the underlying (call) or sell the underlying (put) if the option is exercised.

Sweeping a prior level

Price trading through a previous session reference level to trigger the resting stop and breakout orders there, then reversing.

Term structure

How implied volatility varies across expirations for the same underlying. Front-month IV above back-month IV is backwardation and usually signals an imminent event; the reverse is contango.

The Greeks

The set of risk sensitivities that describe option behaviour: delta (price), gamma (delta change), theta (time), vega (volatility) and rho (interest rates).

Theta

The daily time decay of an option's extrinsic value. Long option positions lose theta each day; short option positions collect it.

Value area low (VAL)

The lower boundary of the price range containing about 70% of a session's traded volume, produced by the volume profile.

Vega

An option's sensitivity to a one-point change in implied volatility. Long options are long vega and gain when IV rises; short options are short vega.

Vertical spread

Buying and selling two options of the same type and the same expiration at different strikes. Risk and reward are both capped.

VIX

The 30-day implied volatility index for the S&P 500, commonly used as a quick proxy for whether index option premium is rich or cheap when IV rank is unavailable.

Volatility skew

The pattern of implied volatility across strikes within one expiration. In equity indices IV is usually higher for downside puts than for equidistant upside calls.

Related Documentation