Studies run on FlashAlpha's historical options data, newest first. Free studies show every result. Alpha and Enterprise studies open with a public summary, and members see the full results.
Every result is public.
18 studies
More than 5 million backtests led to the sell-window endpoint. We replayed every trade it suggests on SPY, QQQ and IWM from 2018 to 2026: 20,883 trades in seven strategies. Following it cut the deepest drawdown from $958,924 to $255,105 against selling the same trades every day. Pick one strategy or all of them, size it in contracts or by target volatility, and see every result.
We backtested 9,216 QQQ option strategies on dealer delta exposure (DEX) and the opening gap, 2022 to 2026. None beat random timing; the best Sharpe was 1.01.
SPY and QQQ covered calls at 6 deltas and 4 expiries, 2022–2026: every setup made less than holding the shares. Weekly calls timed with net gamma beat holding in all 12 weekly setups.
FlashAlpha's study of 2,002 SPY and QQQ symbol-sessions (2022-2025): larger nearest-expiry gamma shares preceded smaller ranges, with calendar-sensitive results. Covered calls beat shares more often but had lower mean returns.
Four 2025 income simulations with zero cash interest, bid/ask costs, daily drawdowns and buy-and-hold comparisons. Inspect the assumptions and why QQQ results spanning 2024 are withheld.
Thirty endpoint-derived signal rules tested across six options strategies on SPY, QQQ and IWM, 2020 to 2025: a ranked matrix with Sharpe, drawdown and controls, a selected-versus-rejected test for every rule and 30 research profiles.
All 50 options strategy profiles ranked by light-backtest results on SPY, QQQ and IWM, 2020 to 2025, with constructions, what each sample showed, what to test next and a downloadable trade ledger for every profile.
We measured 30-day options skew every day from 2018 to 2026 on 53 ETFs and stocks, built a skew score, and tested whether skew predicts returns, volatility and drawdowns, and whether skew rules improve option selling.
We tested dealer gamma (GEX) on 45 single stocks against SPY, QQQ and IWM from 2018 to 2026: how often it is positive, whether its sign says anything about the next day, and how it behaves in selloffs.
Nothing predicted the February 2020 crash. We replayed dealer gamma, the volatility risk premium, the VIX term structure and three volatility models on 11 symbols. Two signals failed on opposite halves of the fall, and a rule that needed both sold nothing until the low.
357,937 option-selling backtests on SPY, QQQ and IWM, 2018-2026: 16 of 16 dealer-gamma rules raised Sharpe; 6 of 15 VRP rules did.
SPY and QQQ strangles, 2022-2026: negative-gamma days held 72% to 74% of SPY losses. Positive-gamma days only lifted QQQ 0DTE Sharpe from +0.35 to +1.38.
Sessions after a negative dealer gamma close move almost twice as much on SPY. We tested whether buying strangles on those sessions makes money after realistic fills, on SPY, QQQ and IWM from 2018 to 2026, with the tests written down before the run.
We repriced 1.35 million short-premium trades on 11 ETFs and stocks from 2018 to 2026 at five fill levels, measured what the quoted spread and a one-cent slip cost each design, and tested three fill habits with a plan written before the results.
We tested nine exit rules checked once a day at the close (take profit, stop loss, time and delta) on 481,000 short-option trades from 2018 to 2026. None beat holding to expiry at the same risk, and on average each one lowered the Sharpe ratio.
We backtested over a million skew trades on 53 ETFs and stocks from 2018 to 2026, selling the rich wing against the cheap one with put spreads, risk reversals, put ratios and broken-wing flies, when skew was steep or flat, with and without a dealer-gamma filter, and answered twelve related questions about skew.
Is trading options skew profitable, and which trade captures it best? We tested 960,351 trades on SPY, QQQ and IWM from 2018 to 2026, across put spreads, ratios, flies, risk reversals, credit spreads and short options, with GEX, VRP and skew entry filters and four exits.
Each year from 2020 we picked the 20 best option-selling strategies from millions of backtests, using only earlier data, and tracked them out of sample. Combine any of the 299 candidates into a portfolio and inspect its daily P&L.
We built six volatility models on 5-minute data, including HAR-IV, HARQ, Realized GARCH, HEAVY and boosted trees, and tested them on 11 symbols from 2018 to 2026. The test asks whether they forecast the next month's volatility better than implied volatility, and whether they improve option selling.
The studies on this page use FlashAlpha historical options data. The Historical API gives you the same data to test your own question.