FiFi's Playbook Trade Qualification Engine

Free tools

The Trading
Toolbox

Nine tools, all free, all on this page. They answer the questions that stop beginners before they place a trade — and they are useful long after you have read the modules once. Bookmark this page.

  1. Options position size How much do I buy?
  2. Contract selection assistant Which contract do I buy?
  3. P&L simulator How much can I make or lose?
  4. Theta decay Why is my option losing value?
  5. Expected move How far is the market pricing a move?
  6. Risk and reward Is this trade worth taking?
  7. Read the chain What am I looking at?
  8. Which Greek is doing this? What just happened to my position?
  9. Pre-trade checklist Am I actually ready?

How much do I buy?

Calculator

Options position size

How many contracts your risk rule actually allows. Two ways to size — pick the one that matches how you plan to exit.

If the contract doesn't fit — size it in shares instead
Shares
Capital needed
Risk per share
Sessions to target

Max risk
Risk per contract
Max contracts
Premium outlay

Explained in full in Position Sizing for Options.

Which contract do I buy?

Guided

Contract selection assistant

Four questions, and it shows you the shape of contract that fits — the expiration range, the delta band, where on the chain to look. It teaches the framework; you do the picking.

What is your thesis?
How long should the move take?
How aggressive?
Earnings before expiration?

Instrument
Expiration
Delta band
Where on the chain
  • Bid/ask tight enough to cross twice
  • Open interest deep enough to exit into
  • Volume showing a live market today

A teaching framework, not a recommendation. It has no idea what you are trading, what it costs, or whether the trade is any good — it describes the kind of contract that usually fits the answers you gave, so you know what to look for on the chain.

Explained in full in Choosing the Right Contract.

How much can I make or lose?

Interactive

What your contract is worth

Buy one contract, then move the world around it. The price is computed the way the market computes it — so time and volatility do to this contract exactly what they do to a real one.

You bought at with 14 days left and IV at 35%. Everything below is measured against that.

Contract cost
Worth now
Profit / loss
Return

worth today worth at expiration

Explained in full in Options 101 and Implied Volatility & IV Crush.

Why is my option losing value?

Interactive

Theta decay

What an at-the-money contract is worth on each remaining day, if the stock never moves at all. The curve is the point: decay is not a straight line, and the last stretch is the steepest.

30 days out
14 days out
7 days out
2 days out

Explained in full in The Greeks.

How far is the market pricing a move?

Interactive

What the market thinks the move will be

The at-the-money straddle — one call plus one put at the money — is the market's own estimate of how far the stock travels by expiration, in either direction.

Expected move
As a percentage
Implied range

Explained in full in The Expected Move.

Is this trade worth taking?

Calculator

Risk and reward

Entry, stop and target — and the win rate you would need for the trade to be worth repeating. Works for shares and for options.

Risk
Reward
Ratio
Breakeven win rate

Explained in full in Managing an Options Trade.

What am I looking at?

Interactive

Read the chain

Calls on a fictional stock trading at $100.40, 21 days to expiration. Tap any column heading to find out what it is telling you.

95ITM 6.45 6.65 6.55 412 3,180 31% 0.79
100ITM 3.05 3.20 3.12 1,840 9,210 29% 0.55
105OTM 1.05 1.15 1.10 960 5,140 28% 0.28
110OTM 0.22 0.32 0.27 210 1,120 27% 0.09
120OTM 0.02 0.18 0.05 6 44 42% 0.04

The row shaded darker is in the money — the stock is already above that strike.

You think the stock gets to about $107 over the next two weeks. Which contract?

Explained in full in Reading an Option Chain.

What just happened to my position?

Quiz

Which Greek is doing this?

Six situations. Name the one responsible.

Explained in full in The Greeks.

Am I actually ready?

Checklist

The 10-point pre-trade check

Ticks save in this browser, so you can keep it open beside your platform and run it before every entry.

  1. A price, not a zone you will decide on in the moment.

  2. The level that says the thesis is wrong. Set on the stock, not on the contract's price.

  3. Run through the sizer above. A number you worked out, not a number that felt about right.

  4. Open interest deep enough that someone is there when you want out.

  5. You cross it twice. On a thin strike that can cost more than the move you are trading for.

  6. Relative to this stock's own normal — am I buying expensive?

  7. An event inside the window changes the trade completely.

  8. And whether the expected move says it is realistic in this timeframe.

  9. With the win rate that ratio actually demands, not the one you hope for.

  10. The honest one. If the reason you are here is that it already moved, that is not a thesis.

Anything unticked is a question you have not answered yet. The trade will still be there once you have.

0 of 10 answered

The options-specific version sits in Choosing the Right Contract.

These tools work on a trade you already found

Finding it is the other half.

Everything here helps you evaluate a setup once it is in front of you. The TQE suite is what FiFi uses to find and qualify them in the first place — live qualification, alerts, the scanner, and today's gamma levels rather than last week's.

Try TQE free for 7 days