Options strategy builder overview

Options strategy builder is a tool that lets you model options strategies (spreads), visualize risk and greeks profiles, model what-if scenarios. This article provides a high-level overview of the feature and includes references to more detailed articles.

On the screenshot below there are blue chips with numbers. Below we give comments on each number.

1 – Search

This is where you begin when selecting an underlying asset to explore its options. Clicking this control opens a symbol search dialog, similar to those found elsewhere on our platform, but customized to show only symbols that have options available.

Read more about searching for options on our platform.

2 – Standard strategies reference

Starting modelling options strategies from scratch can be a little bit frustrating, especially for newbies. That is why we've made a first visit (when user have no own srategies for a selected underlying) screen containg a default well known strategies. So user can easily just click through them and understand the brief conception of the tool.

The set of filters on top of the cards stack allows you to filter strategies by their market direction outlook.

3 – Strategy card

Each card represents a single standard strategy, with a title and a short description. When you click a card, the chart on the right displays the risk profile of that strategy.

The Create Strategy button takes you to the My Strategies area, where you can customize the strategy in any way you like.

4 – Chart

The heart of the Strategy builder is the chart. Basically it allows to plot the following data of a strategy:

Risk profile (Payoff function) at expiration;
P&L - current profit and loss profile of a strategy;
Greeks profiles.

X asix is always an underlying asset price.