36 Options Strategies for Every Trader (Basic to Advanced)

Explore eight intermediate options strategies built from two options, including bull and bear spreads, long and short straddles and strangles, with spread concepts and examples.

Master the bull call spread: buy a lower-strike call and sell a higher-strike call to create a two-call setup with a net premium, yielding capped risk and capped profit.

Bear call spread sells a lower-strike call and buys a higher-strike call to limit risk in a moderately bearish outlook, with break-even at the lower-strike plus net premium.

Explore how a bull put spread caps risk and losses when moderately bullish by selling a higher-strike put and buying a lower-strike put for a net premium.

Learn the bear put spread, buying a higher-strike put and selling a lower-strike put for a moderately bearish outlook. Net premium caps loss while defining max profit and breakeven.

Explore the long straddle, buying call and put at the same strike and expiry to profit from large moves, with two breakeven points and risk limited to the premium.

Short straddle sells the same strike call and put, with payoff opposite to a long straddle; profit is the premium, risk is unlimited if the price moves in either direction.

Long strangle extends the long straddle by buying out-of-the-money call and put with the same expiry. This lowers cost and risk, with two break-even points and unlimited profit.

Short strangle sells out-of-the-money call and put at different strikes (and expiries), expanding the breakeven range for a stagnant market, with unlimited risk and reward limited to the premium received.

This module concludes with eight intermediate options strategies using two-option combinations, showing they're more useful than basic call buying or put selling, and setting up progress to the next module.

Explore advanced options strategies that involve multiple options, including butterfly, condor, and spread. Designed for experienced traders with 2–3 years in options, this lecture introduces these strategy types.

Learn the bull butterfly: buy a lower strike call, sell two middle calls, and buy a higher strike call for a low-cost, limited-risk bullish payoff when the market rises modestly.

Apply the bear butterfly strategy: buy higher and lower puts, sell two middle puts to finance. Limit risk to the net premium; profit peaks near the middle strike.

Explain the long butterfly: buy a call and a put at one strike, sell far out-of-the-money calls and puts to reduce cost, yielding capped profit and two breakeven points.

Explore the short butterfly strategy, the opposite of the long butterfly, combining a short straddle with out-of-the-money calls and puts to cap risk and profit in range-bound markets.

The long iron condor combines buying out-of-the-money call and put with selling further out-of-the-money options to reduce cost, yielding limited risk and two breakeven points.

Explore the put ratio spread, buying one put and selling two out-of-the-money puts to finance the position. With a moderately bearish view, it yields limited reward and potentially unlimited risk.

Use a call ratio spread to profit from a moderate bullish move by buying an at-the-money call and selling two out-of-the-money calls, achieving low cost with limited risk and breakeven.

Sell a lower-strike call and buy two higher-strike calls to implement a call ratio backspread, financing the buys by selling a call, for unlimited upside and limited downside.

apply a put ratio back spread to a bearish view by buying multiple out-of-the-money puts and selling an at-the-money put, limiting risk and defining breakeven as higher strike minus premium.

Execute a long calendar with calls by buying a long-term call and selling a short-term call across two expiries, leveraging theta decay and hedging against market rises.

Execute long calendar with puts by selling current week put and buying next expiry put at same strike, aiming for range-bound profit and loss limited to net premium.

Apply the reverse jade lizard: sell a call and a put spread to collect premium in neutral or bearish markets, with limited risk and breakeven at call strike plus premium.

Strip is a bearish strategy that buys two puts and one call at the same strike, limiting upside risk while profiting if prices fall.

Learn the strap bullish options strategy, buying two at-the-money calls and one put to cap downside while pursuing unlimited upside, with two breakeven points, risk is capped by the premium.

Range forward strategy uses buying an out-of-the-money call and selling an out-of-the-money put to finance a bullish bet, with profit as the market rises and risk limited to net premium.

Execute a risk reversal by buying an out-of-the-money put and selling an out-of-the-money call when bearish, with risk limited to the strike difference and breakeven depending on strike prices.

Understand how to create a long synthetic future by buying a call and selling a put at the same strike, mirroring futures payoff.

Explore the Batman strategy, which combines call ratio spread and put ratio spread to profit from falling volatility, with two breakeven points and limited reward relative to potential risk.

Double plateau combines bull and bear iron condors to create two-range payoffs with eight options; risk is limited to net premium, reward to strike differences, breakeven varies by spread structure.