LEARN MODE — the layout is identical to Execute; nothing has moved. Hover any element to see what it means and how to read it. Clicks are disabled (except tabs), and all data is simulated for teaching. Full definitions live in the Glossary tab. Flip back to EXECUTE any time.

SPX Dealer Positioning — Regime

GEX · DEX · vanna · charm, read together

SPX Gamma Map

One view at a time — price with levels, the strike × expiry heatmap, or the aggregate profile

positive gamma (stabilizing) negative gamma (accelerating) ▲ node grew vs yesterday▼ node shrank⚑ flip row

Dark Pool Feed

Off-exchange block prints · simulated

Market Tide

Cumulative net options premium, session

— Call premium— Put premium

Economic Calendar

Next two weeks · times ET

Earnings Calendar

Covered universe · next two weeks

Premium tracked today

$1M+ multi-leg prints only

Sentiment split

—

▲ bullish vs ▼ bearish premium

Qualifying prints

since session start

Most active sector

—

by net premium

Institutional Order Flow

Multi-leg options prints · minimum $1,000,000 premium

MULTI-LEG ONLY · ENFORCED

Order Executor

You choose the trade. Models size & price it. Nothing auto-executes.

Select a print from the flow feed to price and size it.

Thesis Builder

Define the exposure. The engine searches the chain.

Theme / sector

Direction

Horizon — 12 months

1m24m

Max loss (total $)

Enter a positive dollar amount (min $500).

Delta per spread — 0.20 – 0.40

Minimum delta must be below maximum delta.

Implied volatility preference

Scoring weights (visible by design): exposure per $ risk 40% · IV fit 25% · liquidity 25% · concentration 10%.

Ranked Structures

Run a search to see ranked candidates.

No search yet. Set your constraints and press Search structures.

Net delta (shares)

—

vs target band

Gamma (per 1% move)

—

share-delta change

Theta / day

—

time decay, all positions

Vega / vol pt

—

P&L per 1 vol point

Paper equity

$100,000

Session P&L

Return

0.0%

Realized (banked)

Open positions

Delta Band

Set a target and a tolerance. Breaches light up Hedging.

Target Δ ± Band

Positions

Staged orders land here. Close anything with one click.

Position	Qty	Cost	Value	P&L	Δ shares	Θ/day	Vega

P&L by Ticker

Realized + open, per name — the honest scoreboard

Ticker	Trades	Realized P&L	Open P&L	Total

Transactions

Every buy, sell, close, and hedge — newest first

Time	Action	Detail	Qty	Price	Realized

Exposure Check

Reads live from your portfolio.

Suggested Corrections

Approve to apply. Every hedge is reversible below.

Your Approach

Hands-on, balanced, or laid-back — pick once, change any time

Automation Toggles

Every switch explains exactly what it does — and its honest risk trade-off

The Playbook — how to win, step by step

The same uniform routine, every session

1 · Read the regime first. Market tab. Positive gamma → patient spreads. Negative gamma → defined-risk directional. Near flip → half size.
2 · Let quality come to you. Flow tab shows only high-scoring institutional setups (the quality filter hides the junk). No chasing.
3 · Know the name before the trade. Explorer: its gamma levels, expected move, earnings date. Ten seconds that prevent ugly surprises.
4 · Size from max loss, never from hope. The executor Kellys the size. If Kelly says zero, the answer is zero.
5 · Stage it, and let the robots guard it. Auto-close cuts losers at your line. Take-profit banks winners. Auto-hedge keeps delta inside your band.
6 · Check the ledger, not your feelings. Portfolio tab: realized P&L, every transaction, per-ticker truth.
7 · Repeat. Same steps, every time. The edge is the routine — automation just makes the routine unskippable.
Honesty clause: no routine and no automation removes market risk. What this system does is make your losses chosen, small, and boring — so the winners matter.

Automation Log

Every robot action, as it happens

Gamma Terminal — —

■ Positive GEX ■ Negative GEX ■ Call Wall ■ Put Wall ■ Gamma Flip candles: up/down · expiry dates ruled on chart

Ticker Explorer — Options Chain

Model-priced chain with simulated open interest

Call OI	Call Vol	Call Mid	IV %	Strike	IV %	Put Mid	Put Vol	Put OI

Dealer Positioning — —

This name's own GEX · DEX · vanna · charm

Open Interest Explorer

Calls (blue, right) vs puts (red, left)

Financial Snapshot

Simulated fundamentals for the demo

Stock Watchlist

Click a row to open it in the Explorer

Options Watchlist

Save structures from the Flow executor or Thesis results (☆ Watch)

Custom Alerts

Rules run against the live flow feed

Alert Log

Flow alerts fire here and as pop-ups

Dark Pool — Off-Exchange Institutional Flow

Large blocks printed away from the lit exchanges — where institutions accumulate quietly. Simulated for the demo.

Focus

💠 Dark Pool + GEX Confluence — NVDA

Price levels where heavy dark-pool activity overlaps major gamma structure (call/put walls, flip, ±GEX). High confluence = a level defended by both the options market and off-exchange money.

🗺️ Dark Pool Liquidity Map — NVDA

Net buying Net selling Large block Major level

🏦 Accumulation / Distribution Zones

Clusters of large prints in a tight price band

🌑 Dark Pool Flow — live prints

Every print. Direction is UNKNOWN unless it clearly traded above the ask (buy) or below the bid (sell) — we never fake it.

◆ Madhrya Terminal

NVDA

One screen — every tool below reads the same live data as the numbered tabs (nothing is duplicated). Drag a panel's ✕ to remove it; use Add tool to bring it back. Trades booked here land in the same paper account as Portfolio.

📈 Chart — NVDA

🌊 Market Flow Tide

🔥 Net GEX Heatmap

🌑 Dark Pool

⚡ Trade Terminal

💧 Options Flow

🔔 Flow Alerts

The Academy — one step at a time.

Ten short lessons, one at a time — Lesson 0 assumes you have never bought a stock in your life.
Everything is written in bullet points: plain words first, the deeper layer only when you want it.
Hover anything, anywhere on the site, for an instant plain-English explanation.
Press 🎓 Guide me any time for a hand-held walkthrough of every screen.
The site itself is numbered Step 1 → Step 8, left to right — you never have to guess where to go next.

Introduction — the game you're about to play.

Before any lesson, the big picture: what this website is, the seat you're sitting in, how you actually win, how people lose, and how you keep losses small. Read this once, slowly. Everything after it will make more sense.

What this website is

Plain: It's a cockpit for trading options — it shows you where the biggest players are placing their money, then helps you make (and manage) a smart bet of your own.
Metaphor: A poker table where you can see how the pros are betting before you decide your own hand. That's the edge this whole thing is built around.
Right now: everything is pretend money — a flight simulator. You can crash a hundred times and walk away unhurt. That's the point.
The promise: nothing ever trades without your click. The site advises and computes; you decide. Always.

The seat you're playing — the decision-maker

Your role: you are the capital allocator — the one who decides where money goes, how much, and when to walk away. Not a gambler chasing tips; a manager of risk.
Metaphor: think of yourself as the captain, and this platform as your instruments and co-pilot. The instruments read the weather; you still fly the plane.
What you are NOT: you're not trying to be right every time. Even great traders are wrong constantly — they just lose small and win bigger.
Your one job: find bets where the odds are tilted in your favor, size them so no single one can hurt you, and repeat that a thousand times.

What "the game" actually is

Plain: the market is a giant, non-stop auction. Every price is just the last deal two people agreed on. The game is reading which way the pressure is building — and pricing a bet on it fairly.
Metaphor: the ocean has tides and currents you can't see from the surface. This site draws the currents — where big money is positioned (gamma, flow, dark pools) — so you're not swimming blind.
Two things you can bet on: direction (will it go up or down?) and calm vs chaos (will it drift quietly or move violently?). Every trade here is one of those two bets, in disguise.
The whole loop, in one line: read the market's mood → follow the big money → study the name → size a defined bet → manage it → repeat. That's the game.

How you win

Edge, not luck: you win by only taking bets where the math is on your side — a fair (or cheap) price, decent odds, and the market's mood agreeing with you. The site's TAKE / CAUTION / PASS checklist exists to enforce exactly this.
Small size, many times: winning is a marathon of small, survivable bets — not one hero trade. Get the math edge, apply it repeatedly, and probability does the heavy lifting.
Discipline beats brilliance: the winner isn't the smartest person in the room — it's the one who follows their own rules when it's boring and when it's scary.
What winning looks like: a slowly rising banked-profit line over months — not a thrilling spike. If it feels boring, you're doing it right.

How losing actually happens

Betting too big: the #1 killer. One oversized trade on a bad day erases a month of good ones. Almost every blown account died here.
Fighting the mood: buying calls in a falling, chaotic market — trading against the current instead of with it.
Overpaying: buying an option for more than it's worth (ignoring fair value), so you start the trade already behind.
Holding losers: hoping a red trade "comes back" while it bleeds — turning a small, planned loss into a big, unplanned one.
Getting surprised: holding through an earnings report or a Fed day you didn't know was coming, and getting run over.
Emotion: revenge-trading after a loss, or getting greedy after a win. The market punishes both.

The cost of losing — the honest part

Money is finite: in the real world you can't click reset. Capital you lose is gone, and it was going to compound for you — so you lose the money and everything it would have grown into.
The cruel math: a 50% loss needs a 100% gain just to get back to even. Big losses dig holes that are brutally hard to climb out of — which is exactly why we obsess over keeping them small.
The human cost: big losses wreck your judgment. Scared or tilted traders make worse decisions, which cause more losses — a spiral. Protecting your capital protects your mind.
Why we start pretend: so the only thing you can lose while learning is a lesson. Practice until winning feels routine before a single real dollar is at risk.

How you keep losses small (risk mitigation)

Decide your max loss FIRST: before every trade, you set the most you're willing to lose. The site sizes everything from that number. Parachute on before takeoff.
Bet a fraction, not the farm: the Kelly sizer defaults to a cautious quarter-size — most of the growth, a fraction of the pain.
Use defined-risk bets: spreads cap your worst case at a number you choose in advance. You always know the floor before you jump.
Cut losers on a rule, not a feeling: a pre-set stop closes a trade at your line — before hope turns a small loss into a big one. The robots in the Auto tab do this for you.
Hedge and stay balanced: when your account leans too far one way, one click pulls it back to safe. Seatbelts, not bravado.
Know the calendar: check for earnings and big economic days so nothing scheduled ever surprises you.

Your whole job, in one sentence

The mission: take only bets where the odds favor you, size them so no single loss can hurt, cut the losers fast, let the winners work — and do it over and over.
If you remember nothing else: protect your capital first; profit is what's left over when you stop making big mistakes.
Ready? The next pages build this up brick by brick, starting from "what is a stock." Take your time — there's no clock here.

Lesson 0 — Never invested before? Start right here.

No jargon. No charts yet. Just the honest basics, in bullets, the way a friend would explain them.

What even is the stock market?

Imagine a giant store — but instead of shoes, it sells tiny pieces of companies.
Buy a piece of Apple → you own a sliver of Apple.
Apple does well → your piece is worth more. Does badly → worth less.
That is the whole thing. Everything else is detail.

Why do people invest at all?

Money sitting still slowly loses value — things get more expensive every year.
Money invested in good companies tends to grow over the years as they grow.
Done slowly and carefully, investing isn't gambling — it's planting seeds.

Investing vs trading — the difference

Investing = buy and hold for years. Slow, boring, works.
Trading = shorter bets on prices moving. That's what this platform is about.
Trading is harder and riskier — which is exactly why this site trains you with pretend money first.

The three rules that keep beginners safe

Rule 1: Never use money you need for rent, food, or family. Ever.
Rule 2: Practice with pretend money until winning feels boring — everything here is pretend; you cannot lose a real dollar.
Rule 3: Decide the most you're willing to lose before every trade — the site literally asks you this and does the math.

A stock vs an option — one line each

A stock = a piece of a company.
An option = a ticket that bets on where a stock is going, with a built-in expiry date.
Options can win bigger and lose faster — so the platform always shows your worst case before you click.

What do the colors mean everywhere?

Green ▲ = going up, betting on up, or winning.
Red ▼ = going down, betting on down, or losing.
That's 90% of reading any trading screen. The rest, the site explains when you hover.

Your first day — do exactly this

Step 1: Press the blue 🎓 Guide me button up top — it walks you through every screen in plain words.
Step 2: Make ONE pretend trade the tour shows you how to make.
Step 3: Come back tomorrow, open Portfolio, look at what happened.
Step 4: Repeat. Try → look → learn is how every good trader actually learned.

The honest truth nobody tells beginners

Most people lose money at first — not because they're dumb, but because they bet too big, too fast, on feelings.
Every tool here — the max-loss question, the robots, the checklists — exists to stop exactly those mistakes.
Go slow. Stay small. You have unlimited pretend money and unlimited time.

Lesson 1 — The Building Blocks

Start from absolute zero. Four bullets per idea: what it is, a picture for it, where you will see it here, and the deeper layer when you are ready.

A stock

Plain: A tiny ownership slice of a company; its price is just the last deal buyers and sellers agreed on.
Metaphor: A house on a street where a sale happens every second — the newest sale price is "the price."
On this platform: Every ticker (NVDA, JPM, KO) in the feed, watchlists, and Explorer is one of these slices.
Expert layer: Price is an auction outcome, not a report card — short-run it measures money flow; only long-run does it measure the business.

An option

Plain: A contract about a stock — the right, never the obligation, to buy or sell it at a fixed price until a deadline.
Metaphor: A refundable deposit on a house: you lock the price today, and if you walk away you only lose the deposit.
On this platform: Everything in the Flow feed and the chain in Explorer is one of these contracts.
Expert layer: Options are priced insurance — you are always buying insurance from someone or selling it to them, and the fair premium is the whole game.

Calls and puts — the only two kinds

Plain: A call profits when the stock rises; a put profits when it falls. Every strategy is built from these two bricks.
Metaphor: A call is a rain check locking today's low price; a put is an insurance policy paying out if things break.
On this platform: ▲ BULLISH prints are call-flavored, ▼ BEARISH are put-flavored, everywhere on the site.
Expert layer: Puts and calls are mirror images (put-call parity): a call plus cash behaves like a put plus stock — pros price one from the other.

Strike and expiration

Plain: The strike is the locked-in price; the expiration is the deadline the contract dies on.
Metaphor: A coupon with a printed price and an expiry date.
On this platform: "190/230 call spread · Jan'27" reads: strikes 190 and 230, deadline January 2027.
Expert layer: Strike distance sets your odds (delta approximates them); deadline distance sets how much time premium you pay.

Premium and the ×100 rule

Plain: The premium is the option's price, and one contract covers 100 shares — a $2.50 option costs $250.
Metaphor: Concert tickets priced per seat, sold only in blocks of 100 seats.
On this platform: When Flow says "$12M premium," an institution spent twelve million dollars on that one idea.
Expert layer: Premium = intrinsic value + time value; time value is the paid-for hope that theta eats daily.

Bid, ask, and the spread

Plain: The bid is the best buyer, the ask is the best seller, and the gap is the toll you pay to trade.
Metaphor: A pawn shop: buys from you low (bid), sells to you high (ask); the gap is their margin.
On this platform: The executor compares model value to the ask so you can see when the toll is fair.
Expert layer: Spread width is the honest price of liquidity — a wide spread costs active traders more than commissions ever will.

ITM / ATM / OTM

Plain: In-the-money already has value; at-the-money sits at the stock price; out-of-the-money needs a move to pay.
Metaphor: Lottery tickets: ITM matched some numbers already, ATM is on the cusp, OTM needs luck to arrive.
On this platform: The chain in Explorer highlights the ATM row.
Expert layer: Deltas cluster near 1 deep ITM, ~0.5 ATM, near 0 far OTM — and gamma peaks exactly at ATM.

Multi-leg structures (spreads)

Plain: Combining a buy and a sell caps both your cost and your worst case at numbers you choose in advance.
Metaphor: Buying the staircase instead of the elevator: you give up the penthouse to guarantee you can't fall past the floor.
On this platform: The engine builds call spreads, put spreads, and straddles; every card prints max loss before you click.
Expert layer: Spreads also neutralize part of your IV risk — you buy one strike's vol and sell another's, so vol crush hurts far less.

The one rule of this platform

Plain: Decide the most you are willing to lose first; let the math size everything else from that number.
Metaphor: Pack your parachute before boarding, not after the door opens.
On this platform: Thesis asks for max loss up front; Kelly sizes from it; the Auto tab robots enforce it.
Expert layer: Professionals think in risk units ("I risk 1R per idea") — this platform just makes R explicit.

Lesson 5 — Market Regime: GEX, DEX, Vanna & Charm

Why the same trade wins on some days and dies on others: the market has moods, and dealer hedging is the machinery behind them.

Dealers (market makers)

Plain: The firms on the other side of nearly every option trade; they hedge constantly, and that hedging moves the whole market.
Metaphor: The casino's cashier — they don't bet, they balance the books after every wager, and their balancing shakes the casino floor.
On this platform: The entire Market tab is an estimate of what the cashiers must do next.
Expert layer: Dealers aim for delta-neutral; their forced buying and selling to stay neutral is the mechanical flow behind GEX, vanna, and charm.

GEX — gamma exposure

Plain: How much stock dealers must buy or sell for every 1% the market moves.
Metaphor: A thermostat (positive GEX — stabilizing) versus a megaphone (negative GEX — amplifying).
On this platform: The big number on the regime card; blue = calm-making, red = chaos-making.
Expert layer: GEX ≈ Σ gamma × OI × 100 × spot² across strikes; the d/d change tells you whether the stabilizer is being built or dismantled.

DEX — delta exposure

Plain: The total directional bet embedded in all open options.
Metaphor: The lean of a crowd on a small boat — the harder everyone leans, the more a small wave tips it.
On this platform: Second box on the regime card; falling d/d = directional bets being unwound.
Expert layer: Rising price with falling DEX is a rally the options market does not believe — fragile, fade-prone.

Vanna

Plain: How dealer hedges change when implied volatility changes.
Metaphor: Falling fear loosens the dealer's grip on the brake — they buy stock back, quietly pushing markets up.
On this platform: Third box on the regime card, labeled supportive or pressuring.
Expert layer: Vanna flows dominate after events (vol crush → dealer buying) and into OPEX — the post-CPI "vanna rally" is this exact mechanism.

Charm

Plain: How dealer hedges change just from time passing.
Metaphor: Sand draining from an hourglass forces the dealer to hand shares back grain by grain, drifting price toward big strikes.
On this platform: Fourth box; "supportive drift" means the daily unwind currently leans upward.
Expert layer: Charm peaks the week before big expirations and near large OTM put walls — why quiet pre-OPEX weeks grind up.

Gamma flip level

Plain: The index level where dealer gamma changes sign — above it they stabilize, below it they accelerate.
Metaphor: The waterline on a ship: above it waves slap the hull; below it water pours in.
On this platform: Marked ⚑ on the regime card, price chart, heatmap, and every per-ticker chart.
Expert layer: Crossing the flip often *causes* the vol event — hedging demand reverses exactly there, which is why calm turns violent at that line.

The three regimes

Plain: Positive gamma = range-bound, vol-suppressed. Negative gamma = trending, vol-expanding. Near flip = unstable.
Metaphor: Calm harbor / open storm / the harbor mouth where two waters meet.
On this platform: Named in large type on the regime card; the verdict box holds every trade against it.
Expert layer: Regime picks the strategy class before the ticker: fade extremes in positive gamma, buy defined-risk direction in negative, halve size at the flip.

Lesson 4 — Order Flow: watching the whales

Prices are opinions; orders are commitments. The Flow tab shows the commitments of the biggest players.

Order flow

Plain: The stream of actual executed trades — what big money does, not what it says.
Metaphor: Ignore the fishermen's stories; watch where the boats drop their nets.
On this platform: The Flow tab, filtered to $1M+ multi-leg institutional prints, quality-screened by default.
Expert layer: Flow is information *because* it is expensive — a $12M spread is a costly, falsifiable opinion, unlike a tweet.

Premium (in flow)

Plain: The dollars actually spent on the trade — conviction in one number.
Metaphor: The difference between "I like this horse" and $12M at the betting window.
On this platform: The bold dollar figure on every feed row; stat tiles total it all session.
Expert layer: Compare premium to the name's normal activity — $2M in KO says more than $5M in NVDA.

Sweep

Plain: An aggressive order hitting every exchange at once to fill NOW.
Metaphor: Running through the mall buying every size-10 shoe in stock, price be damned.
On this platform: The SWEEP tag on feed rows.
Expert layer: Repeated ask-side sweeps within minutes are the classic urgency footprint worth respecting.

Block and cross

Plain: A block is one huge negotiated print; a cross is a pre-arranged match between two parties.
Metaphor: A handshake deal at the back of the auction house, announced after it is done.
On this platform: BLOCK and CROSS tags on feed rows.
Expert layer: Blocks lean accumulation; crosses are often hedges or transfers — weight them below sweeps when reading intent.

Open interest vs volume

Plain: Volume = contracts traded today; OI = contracts still open overnight.
Metaphor: Volume is how many walked through the door; OI is how many are still in the building.
On this platform: Both columns in the Explorer chain; the OI Explorer draws the buildings.
Expert layer: Volume with rising OI = new positioning (real). Volume with flat OI = churn (noise). This one distinction filters half of all flow hype.

Call wall and put wall

Plain: The strikes with the biggest OI — dealer hedging often makes them resistance and support.
Metaphor: Speed bumps built out of other people's contracts.
On this platform: Named under the OI Explorer and drawn as +GEX / −GEX lines on every ticker chart.
Expert layer: Walls matter most near expiration; a wall being *built* (▲ on the heatmap) is stronger than one being abandoned (▼).

Dark pools

Plain: Off-exchange venues where big stock blocks trade without moving the visible price.
Metaphor: Selling a mansion quietly by appointment instead of a public open house.
On this platform: The Dark Pool feed on the Market tab with AT ASK / MIDPOINT / AT BID tags.
Expert layer: One print is nothing; a *pattern* of ask-side prints near the lows is the accumulation signature.

Market Tide

Plain: The running total of call premium versus put premium spent today.
Metaphor: Two tug-of-war teams; the rope's drift shows who is actually pulling.
On this platform: The two-line chart on the Market tab — watch separation and direction, not levels.
Expert layer: The pro read is divergence: price falling while the call tide accelerates = aggressive dip-buying underneath the tape.

Lesson 2 — Pricing & the Greeks

Never pay a price you can't check. The executor checks every price against a model — here is what the model and its dials mean.

Black–Scholes (fair value)

Plain: A formula turning five knowns — stock price, strike, time, rate, volatility — into a theoretical fair price.
Metaphor: A used-car pricing guide: it won't predict the future, but it instantly flags a crazy sticker.
On this platform: "Model value vs market ask" in the executor; the verdict's first check.
Expert layer: Its softest input is volatility — feed it the wrong vol and it prices the wrong world; that is why IV rank sits beside every trade.

Implied volatility (IV)

Plain: The amount of future movement baked into an option's price — high IV means expensive options.
Metaphor: Umbrella prices: identical umbrellas cost more when the forecast says hurricane.
On this platform: The IV% columns in the chain; the vol input on the executor card.
Expert layer: IV is a tradable forecast: buy vol when the market is too calm, sell it when too scared — that is the entire vol-trading business.

IV rank

Plain: Where today's IV sits inside this name's own 52-week range, 0–100.
Metaphor: Is this umbrella expensive *for this shop*? $20 is normal in Seattle, outrageous in Phoenix.
On this platform: On snapshots, watchlist rows, and the thesis "avoid rich IV" filter.
Expert layer: Rank beats raw IV because vol mean-reverts per name — rank 80 means paying top-decile prices for hope.

Delta (Δ)

Plain: How much the option moves per $1 of stock move; roughly the odds it finishes in the money.
Metaphor: A steering linkage: 0.30 delta passes 30% of the stock's motion to you.
On this platform: Per-structure in the executor; portfolio total in share-equivalents on Portfolio.
Expert layer: Delta is also your hedge ratio — a +1,200Δ book is neutralized by ~1,200 short beta-adjusted shares, exactly what the ⚖ button does.

Gamma (Γ)

Plain: How fast delta changes as the stock moves — your exposure's acceleration.
Metaphor: Cruise control that stiffens the pedal the faster you go.
On this platform: The "per 1% move" portfolio tile; the Market regime machinery is this at index scale.
Expert layer: Long gamma: you get longer into rallies, shorter into falls (pleasant). Short gamma: the reverse (how premium sellers die in trends).

Theta (Θ)

Plain: What one day of time costs you (long options) or pays you (short options).
Metaphor: Rent on hope: every sunrise, the landlord collects.
On this platform: Θ/day per position and the portfolio tile.
Expert layer: Theta is gamma's bill — the convexity you enjoy is what you pay time-rent on; near expiry, ATM theta goes vertical.

Vega

Plain: Your P&L per one-point change in implied volatility.
Metaphor: Owning umbrellas as the forecast worsens — they appreciate before a drop falls.
On this platform: Per-position and portfolio vega on Portfolio.
Expert layer: Spreads mute vega; straddles maximize it. Check vega before earnings or you are betting on vol whether you meant to or not.

Breakeven, max loss, max gain

Plain: The expiry price where the trade ties; the hard floor; the hard ceiling.
Metaphor: A fixed-price menu: the worst and best meal you can be served, printed before you sit down.
On this platform: On every executor card and thesis result, before you click.
Expert layer: Positions can profit before breakeven is touched (delta + vol moves) — breakeven is the honest *expiry* yardstick, not a wall.

Lesson 3 — Position Sizing: the Kelly Criterion

Most traders don't die from being wrong. They die from being wrong too big. This lesson is the seatbelt.

Bankroll

Plain: The pot of capital trading may touch — and nothing else.
Metaphor: The chips you brought to the table, walled off from the rent money.
On this platform: Set in the executor; Portfolio equity grows from it.
Expert layer: Sizing off net worth instead of a walled bankroll is how "risk 2%" quietly becomes "risk everything."

Kelly criterion

Plain: f* = p − (1−p)/b: the bankroll fraction that maximizes long-run growth for a given edge.
Metaphor: A GPS for bet size: give it odds and payout, it returns the fastest safe speed.
On this platform: Computed live on every selected print from model probability and payoff odds.
Expert layer: Kelly is optimal only if p and b are right — and they never quite are, which is why nobody serious trades it full.

Fractional Kelly

Plain: Trading a quarter to a half of the Kelly number — most of the growth, a fraction of the pain.
Metaphor: Driving at 60% of top speed: you arrive nearly as fast, and alive.
On this platform: The slider in the executor, defaulting to 25%.
Expert layer: Half-Kelly ≈ 75% of the growth at half the variance; quarter-Kelly is the institutional norm because estimation error compounds.

Probability of profit (p)

Plain: The modeled odds the trade finishes profitable.
Metaphor: A weather forecast for your position — directional, useful, never a guarantee.
On this platform: Printed to one decimal on the Kelly card.
Expert layer: p inherits Black–Scholes assumptions; fat tails make real p slightly worse than modeled for OTM longs — one more reason to go fractional.

Payoff odds (b)

Plain: Max gain ÷ max loss — what you win per dollar risked when right.
Metaphor: The carnival sign: "win $2 per $1" means b = 2.
On this platform: On the Kelly card for every structure.
Expert layer: Edge lives in the pair (p, b): a 35% win rate is great at b = 3 and ruinous at b = 1. Never judge either alone.

The verdict box (TAKE / CAUTION / PASS)

Plain: A four-check discipline gate: price vs model, Kelly edge, regime fit, print conviction.
Metaphor: A pre-flight checklist — planes don't take off on pilot vibes.
On this platform: Top of the executor; a hard ✗ can never produce TAKE.
Expert layer: It slows you down at the exact moment excitement speeds you up; overriding it should feel like signing a waiver.

Lesson 6 — Portfolio, Hedging & Automation

A portfolio is not "long" or "short" — it is a bundle of exposures. Here is how you manage the bundle, by hand or by robot.

Delta band

Plain: A target exposure plus a tolerance; inside it, do nothing; outside it, correct.
Metaphor: Lane-keeping for your account: drift over the line and the wheel nudges you back.
On this platform: Set on Portfolio; breaches light tabs red and arm the ⚖ Hedge-now button.
Expert layer: Bands beat constant rebalancing by acting only on meaningful drift — tolerance is the dial between discipline and churn.

Beta-weighting

Plain: Converting every position into SPX-equivalent exposure so they can be summed honestly.
Metaphor: Converting all currencies to dollars before counting the pile.
On this platform: All Δ-shares totals here are beta-adjusted.
Expert layer: A 2.0-beta miner's share carries twice an index share's market risk; unweighted sums are quietly wrong.

The hedge menu

Plain: Shares: fast, free, linear. Puts: cost premium, protect convexly in crashes. Trimming: cuts risk at the source.
Metaphor: An extinguisher (shares), an insurance policy (puts), or storing less fuel (trimming).
On this platform: Ranked on the Hedge tab; ⚖ applies the shares hedge in one click, no tab-switch.
Expert layer: Match hedge to fear: drift → shares; gaps → puts; concentration → trim, because no overlay fixes owning too much of one thing.

Stop-loss (auto-close on red)

Plain: A preset loss line where the position is closed automatically.
Metaphor: A circuit breaker: trips *before* the wiring melts.
On this platform: The Auto tab robot; its closes hit the ledger tagged AUTO.
Expert layer: Stops convert unbounded regret into a chosen, boring number; tight stops die of noise, wide stops die of denial — pick the line while calm.

Take-profit

Plain: A preset gain line where the win is banked automatically.
Metaphor: Leaving the casino the moment you're up the number you wrote on your hand at the door.
On this platform: Auto tab toggle; banked gains land in Realized P&L.
Expert layer: Winners held too long round-trip more often than beginners believe; systematic profit-taking is why equity curves climb instead of breathe.

Realized vs unrealized P&L

Plain: Unrealized moves with the market; realized is banked by closing and can never be taken back.
Metaphor: Fish in the net versus fish in the freezer.
On this platform: The paper strip shows both; closing moves money to Realized permanently — your balance never resets.
Expert layer: Judge yourself on realized over months, not unrealized over days; the ledger is the truth, the open book is weather.

Automation (autopilot)

Plain: Preset rules that execute your discipline: close losers, bank winners, re-hedge drift.
Metaphor: A dishwasher for trading hygiene — does the boring thing perfectly so you don't skip it when tired.
On this platform: The Auto tab: pick an approach; every toggle explains its honest risk trade-off; every action is logged.
Expert layer: Automation removes emotion, not market risk — its edge is making your worst day identical to your plan, which humans reliably fail at.

Lesson 7 — Events & Calendars

Scheduled events are when volatility gets repriced — moments your options change value for reasons unrelated to the stock.

CPI and PCE (inflation prints)

Plain: Monthly inflation numbers that steer interest-rate expectations.
Metaphor: The market's blood-pressure reading — one bad print and every asset gets re-medicated.
On this platform: HIGH rows on the economic calendar; check before any short-dated trade.
Expert layer: Index options price an event straddle into these dates; after the print, that extra IV evaporates in minutes (vol crush).

FOMC (the Fed)

Plain: The rate decision and press conference — the most reliable scheduled volatility there is.
Metaphor: The landlord announcing everyone's rent at once.
On this platform: HIGH row on the calendar; regimes often change character after it.
Expert layer: The classic post-FOMC drift is vanna/charm mechanics: event hedges unwind, dealers buy back, quiet afternoons grind upward.

NFP, GDP, retail sales

Plain: Growth data — jobs, output, spending.
Metaphor: The economy's report card, delivered before the open.
On this platform: MED/HIGH calendar rows; they rotate money between your sector themes.
Expert layer: Growth surprises move the market's *shape* (cyclicals vs defensives) more than its level — watch the sector flow strip after each print.

Earnings

Plain: Quarterly results — the single-stock volatility event.
Metaphor: Judgment day, scheduled in advance, four times a year.
On this platform: The earnings calendar shows dates + IV rank; Explorer shows the next date for whatever you're viewing.
Expert layer: IV builds into the date and collapses after; buying options the day before is paying peak prices for a coin flip — spreads or patience beat it.

OPEX and 0DTE

Plain: Monthly expiration when huge OI rolls off; 0DTE options expire the same day they trade.
Metaphor: OPEX is moving day for the whole options market; a 0DTE is a mayfly — born at the open, gone by the close.
On this platform: The OPEX column on the GEX heatmap; charm/vanna guidance peaks the week before.
Expert layer: Post-OPEX the walls and pins vanish overnight — Friday's map is blank on Monday; re-read the heatmap before trusting old levels.

Vol crush

Plain: The sharp IV collapse the moment an event passes.
Metaphor: Umbrella prices the morning after the storm misses.
On this platform: Why the thesis engine defaults to "avoid rich IV."
Expert layer: Crush is how you can be right on direction and still lose on a long option — the vol you overpaid for leaves faster than the stock moves.

Lesson 8 — The Playbook: one path, start to finish

The site is numbered for a reason. Go 1 → 2 → 3 → … → 8, in order, every time. Never skip ahead, never double back. Each step below tells you exactly what to do, what you're looking for, and when you're allowed to move on.

Before you start — the ground rules

Everything here is pretend money. You cannot lose a real dollar. Relax.
One full loop (Step 1 → 8) takes about 15 minutes once you know it.
If anything confuses you, flip to LEARN (top-left switch) and hover it — same screen, instant explanations.
The bottom of every screen has a card telling you when you're done and which step is next. Trust it.

STEP 1 · Market — read the mood first

Do: open the Market tab. Read the big regime card at the top.
Look for: is the market calm (green, drifts sideways), stormy (red, moves fast), or on the edge (purple)?
Look for: the FAVORED / CAUTION / AVOID hints — they tell you what kind of trade today rewards.
Why it's first: the same trade wins on calm days and dies on stormy days. Mood before ideas, always.
Move on when: you can finish the sentence "today the market is ___, so I should look for ___."

STEP 2 · Flow — follow the smart money

Do: open Flow. Scan the feed of $1M+ professional bets — only the good-looking ones are shown.
Look for: ▲ green rows (betting up) and ▼ red rows (betting down) in names you recognize.
Do: click ONE row that interests you. The right-hand panel does all the math and gives a verdict.
Rule: a whale bet is a clue, never an order. You still check it yourself in Steps 3 and 4.
Move on when: you have one candidate idea — or you've honestly found nothing, which is also fine (Step 4 lets you build your own).

STEP 3 · Explorer — know the name before you touch it

Do: type your ticker into Explorer's search bar.
Look for: the price story — is it climbing, falling, or going sideways?
Look for: the colored walls — yellow ceiling above, pink floor below, purple tipping point. Price tends to bounce between walls.
Look for: the next earnings date. Never be surprised by a scheduled explosion.
Bonus: the Trade Engine panel already names the exact contract, entry, target, and stop for this name.
Move on when: you know where the walls are and there's no earnings landmine inside your trade window.

STEP 4 · Thesis — decide your risk, let the math size it

Do: open Thesis. It has already pre-set itself to today's market mood.
Do FIRST: type the most you are willing to lose. This number is the boss of everything.
Do: press Search — the engine builds ranked trades that fit your belief AND your limit.
Look for: the verdict on each card: TAKE (all checks pass), CAUTION (some pass), PASS (walk away).
Rule: only stage trades marked TAKE while you're learning. The checklist is smarter than excitement.
Move on when: you've staged your trade (or decided today has no trade — pros pass constantly).

STEP 5 · Portfolio — watch the scoreboard, not your feelings

Do: open Portfolio. Every staged trade lives here with live profit and loss.
Look for: the delta band — green means your account is balanced; red means it's leaning too hard one way.
Do: if it's leaning, press the ⚖ one-click hedge — or continue to Step 6 for the full menu.
Rule: closed results are banked forever. Judge yourself on the ledger over weeks, not on today's wiggle.
Move on when: you've looked at every open position and the band is green (or you know why it isn't).

STEP 6 · Hedge — fix the lean the right way

Do: open Hedge when the band is red or before risky events.
Pick the fix that matches the fear: account drifting → shares (fast, free). Scared of a crash → puts (paid insurance). Too much in one name → trim it (no overlay fixes over-concentration).
Rule: nothing executes without your click. You approve every correction.
Move on when: the account is back inside the safe band.

STEP 7 · Auto — make your discipline automatic

Do: open Auto and pick an approach. Balanced is the beginner default.
The robots: cut losers at your line, bank winners at your target, re-hedge drift — even while you sleep.
Rule: read the honest trade-off printed under every switch before flipping it on.
Why it matters: robots don't remove market risk — they make your worst day identical to your plan, which humans reliably fail at.
Move on when: your safety rules are on and you understand what each one costs.

STEP 8 · Lists & Alerts — let the platform watch, not you

Do: add the names you care about to a watchlist.
Do: set alerts — price levels, flow in your names, regime changes — so the site taps your shoulder.
Rule: staring at screens all day makes you trade MORE and WORSE. Alerts exist so you can live your life.
Done when: you could close the laptop right now and nothing important would slip past you.

The loop — how you actually get good

Tomorrow: start again at Step 1. Same order. Every time.
One loop a day beats ten hours of random clicking. Repetition of the sequence is the skill.
After 20 loops, check your ledger: are your TAKE trades beating your gut trades? (They will be.)
When winning with pretend money feels boring and mechanical — that's the graduation signal.

The five mistakes that end beginners (avoid = win)

Skipping Step 1 — trading against the market's mood.
Skipping the max-loss question — betting big on a feeling.
Overriding PASS verdicts — the checklist said no for a written reason.
Holding losers past the line — this is what the Step 7 robots are for.
Checking positions every 5 minutes — this is what Step 8 alerts are for.

Lesson 9 — Glossary A–Z: literally everything, defined

Every word this platform uses, one clear definition each. Search or scroll.

Introduction · 1 of 11

Demo interface with simulated data for product-design purposes only. Not investment advice; no real orders are created or routed. Options involve significant risk and are not suitable for all investors. Kelly criterion and Black–Scholes outputs are model estimates built on assumptions that can be wrong; position sizing and execution decisions remain entirely the trader's.