Three trades, three stories

Most options guides list strategies; this one tells stories. Three traders walk into Tradient with three different goals. For each we show exactly what they click, what the scanner returns, and what they should be thinking about before they hit Send to broker. Follow any one of these end-to-end and you’ll have seen the full loop.

Story 1 — Priya wants monthly income on her AAPL

The situation.Priya owns 100 shares of AAPL at a cost basis of $180. AAPL is trading around $270. She isn’t in a rush to sell — she’d gladly part with the shares at $285, and until then she wants the stock to work a little harder. This is the textbook setup for a covered call: sell the right to buy her shares at a higher strike and collect premium for the promise.

What she does

1. 1

   Open Radar → Goals → Generate monthly income

   The goal card maps to a cash-secured-put scan by default. Priya switches the strategy dropdown to covered call because she already owns the stock. She picks the Balanced risk profile — short delta between 0.20 and 0.30, 25–45 DTE, minimum annualized return 12%.

2. 2

   Narrow to AAPL

   In the ticker box she types AAPL. The default is her whole watchlist, but for this decision she only wants her current position. Run scan.

3. 3

   Read the results

   Four rows come back — one per eligible expiration. The top row has a Tradient Score of 74, a POP of 78%, a $2.40 credit on the $290 strike 32 DTE, and an annualized return of 18%. The IV regime chip says normaland conviction is 62. That’s a solid middle-of-the-road pick, not a screamer.

4. 4

   Sanity-check in Focus mode

   Click Analyze in Focus. The P&L profile shows max profit of $240 (premium) if AAPL stays below $290, and the line flattens as the stock climbs past that strike — Priya’s upside is capped at (290 − 270) × 100 + $240 = $2,240 total if she’s called away. The Monte Carlo distribution says the 95th-percentile worst case is full assignment at $290 with an additional $4 above that — a small opportunity cost, not a real loss.

What could go wrong

• The stock rips past $290. Priya gets called away at $290 and misses the upside above that. This is the defining trade-off of a covered call — she accepted capped upside in exchange for the $240 of premium. If she has strong conviction AAPL runs to $310, a covered call is the wrong trade.
• AAPL dumps 15%. The $240 premium is cold comfort on a $4,000 drawdown. Covered calls do not hedge downside — they just soften it marginally. If she wants real downside protection, see Story 3.
• Earnings lands mid-trade. Always check the earnings badge. Writing calls through an earnings print is legitimate but the IV crush after the event can work against you. Tradient flags this — listen to the flag.

Story 2 — Marcus is bullish on NVDA into earnings

The situation.NVDA reports earnings in 11 days. Marcus has been watching the setup: the stock has consolidated between $200 and $215 for three weeks, IV rank is 62 (elevated but not extreme), and the analyst estimate implies a 7% move either way. He thinks the print is bullish and wants leveraged upside — but he also has a rule about never losing more than a fixed amount per trade. A naked long call could work, but the IV is rich enough that the call would crush after the print even if he’s right on direction. The right trade is a bull call spread: buy an ATM call, sell a further OTM call, cap both his cost and his upside.

What he does

1. 1

   Open Radar → Goals → Trade an earnings event

   Pick Bullish direction. Tradient pre-selects a bull call spread as the default structure for this flavor, with the near-term expiration matching the earnings cycle.

2. 2

   Narrow to NVDA and the earnings-week expiration

   Ticker: NVDA. DTE window tightened to 7–14 days so he only sees strikes that expire afterthe earnings announcement. If his near leg expires before the print, he gets none of the move — obvious once you think about it, easy to mess up if you don’t.

3. 3

   Read the results

   The top row: long 205 call / short 220 call, 14 DTE, debit $5.20. Max profit $9.80 per spread (the $15 strike width minus the debit) on a max loss of $5.20. Tradient Score 68, POP 41%, R:R 0.53. IV regime is richand conviction is 58. The edge column shows +$0.30 — the spread is priced slightly in Marcus’s favor relative to theoretical fair value.

   ·Aside

   A POP of 41% is not a bad trade. Directional trades have low POP by design — you’re betting the average outcome is positive, not the most likely outcome. R:R of 0.53 means Marcus risks $1 to make $1.88. Good enough to justify a 41% win rate (expected value: 0.41 × $9.80 − 0.59 × $5.20 ≈ +$0.95 per spread).
4. 4

   Size it correctly

   Marcus set his per-trade cap at $500. At $520 debit per spread, he can only buy one. He’d rather do two at a wider spread or a closer short strike, so he tweaks the chip bar to find a cheaper variant — long 205 / short 215 drops the debit to $3.80 and he buys two.

What could go wrong

• NVDA flat-lines. Both calls decay; Marcus loses most of his debit. This is the base case for directional trades — you pay the premium up front and you need the move to pay for it.
• NVDA rips past $215.His short call caps him. He gets max profit but not the moon. That’s the price of having a spread instead of a naked long — he traded tail upside for a cheaper, more defined trade.
• Binary event risk.Earnings trades are binary. Don’t size them like directional trades. A 20% drawdown on this trade is completely normal even if the thesis is right.

Story 3 — Dana hedges her long SPY

The situation.Dana holds 500 shares of SPY at an average cost of $580. SPY is currently at $710. She’s sitting on $65k of unrealized gains and doesn’t want to sell (capital gains and market-timing reasons), but the term structure flattened this week and a few macro indicators have her nervous. She wants downside protection without paying a lot for it. The collar — long put + short call — is the canonical trade here. The short call finances the long put; done right, the net cost is near zero.

What she does

1. 1

   Open Radar → Goals → Hedge what I own

   Select Zero-cost collar. The scan looks for put/call strike pairs where the premiums offset each other to within $0.25 net per collar, on a 30–60 DTE window.

2. 2

   Narrow to SPY

   Ticker: SPY. Run scan.

3. 3

   Read the results

   The best row: long 695 put (5 DTE deep enough to matter but within the near-month), short 725 call, 45 DTE, net credit $0.15 per share ($15 per collar). Tradient Score 71, POP not applicable (collars have three outcomes: stock between strikes, stock below put, stock above call), max loss locked at $7.50 per share if SPY crashes below $695 (difference between cost basis at $580 — wait, no: she bought the put at $695, so her floor is $695, not $580).

   !Heads up

   Read that last number carefully. The collar’s put strike becomes your new downside floor — not your cost basis. Dana is protecting her recent gains, not her original entry.
4. 4

   Map it to the position

   500 shares = 5 collars (1 put + 1 short call per 100 shares). Net credit $75 total, so Dana gets paid a tiny amount to put the hedge on. If SPY drops to $650, her loss on stock is capped at ($710 − $695) × 500 = $7,500 instead of ($710 − $650) × 500 = $30,000. That’s the whole point of the trade.

What could go wrong

• SPY rips past $725.Dana’s short call caps her upside at $725. She’ll be called away if it finishes above $725 at expiration — and she’ll owe capital gains on the called shares. The trade-off of the collar is always this: you cap the upside in exchange for the floor.
• SPY whips 2% in a week. Even a small move can push the collar into negative mark-to-market intraday because the put goes near-zero delta while the short call gains value fast. This is normal — collars are a hold-to- expiration trade, not an intraday one.
• The put expires worthless. Best case! The market went sideways or up, Dana kept her stock, and she paid nothing (actually earned $75) for the insurance. A collar that expires worthless is a successful collar.

The shared pattern

All three trades share the same loop even though the goals look wildly different:

• Start with the situation.You own something, or you want to own something, or you’re nervous about something. The goal comes first; the strategy is downstream.
• Let Radar translate.The goal card picks a sensible default structure and filter set. You can always override, but don’t start from “I want to trade an iron condor.” Start from “I want calm-market income and a defined max loss.”
• Read the score and the context. A Tradient Score of 70 in a crushed IV regime means something different from the same 70 in a rich regime. The score tells you “is this a decent trade relative to alternatives right now” — the regime tells you “should you be trading this kind of structure at all today.”
• Know your exit before you enter.Each story above has a clear “what could go wrong” section because every trade has one. Write yours in the journal before the fill — future-you will need it.

Where to go next

• Your first scan — the click-by-click tour, in case you skipped it.
• How to pick a strategy — a decision tree from “what do you believe about the market?” to “which structure.”
• Glossary — every acronym (POP, R:R, IV rank, delta, theta, vega) defined in plain English.