There is one of the most consistently profitable edges in options trading: earnings volatility. It is backed by years of academic research, it repeats every single quarter across hundreds of names, and still most traders approach it the wrong way. Done correctly, earnings trades can become the backbone of a highly repeatable income stream. You're not gambling on direction; use a structured approach that puts probability in your favor. Today I'll show you exactly how I apply that framework to a live setup. ACN reports earnings after the bell, and below are three specific trade ideas built around the same edge. Most traders look at a large implied move, assume the market is overpricing the event, and sell a strangle. It works. Until it doesn't. And one loss will erase months of careful premium collection. That is because your real edge is not in blindly selling premium, but in understanding that earnings distort the term structure in a very specific and very tradable way. The expiration that contains the announcement gets loaded with huge event premium, and the next expiration out contains far less of it. After the print, the front-week premium collapses immediately, and the deferred week crushes much less. That spread between expirations is one of the most consistent opportunities in options, validated by thousands of backtests and academic research. For Accenture (ACN), the 3/20 expiration is carrying the event risk, the 3/27 expiration is not. That gives us a clean surface distortion to target. And here are three ways to trade it, depending on how strong your directional view is. Trade 1: Bullish Diagonal Structure: Sell 1 x 210 Call, expiring 3/20, Buy 1 x 205 Call, expiring 3/27. This is the cleanest and most repeatable setup of the three, because you are selling the most inflated part of the surface, and buying a slightly lower-strike call in the next expiration, where IV should hold up much better after the print. The long 205 call sits below the short 210 call, which gives the structure a bullish shape.

As you know, when I present trade ideas here, I usually go very deep into the analysis. Each position is built on multiple layers of research: fundamentals, implied volatility levels, volatility surface (both skew and term structure), liquidity, and additional signals I track and I'll share in the posts here. The goal is always to identify trades with strong premium, high probability, and structures that are relatively easy to manage. But today I decided to do something a little different. After our latest fund portfolio meeting and internal discussion, we opened 30 new trades across the portfolio. Instead of writing a long analysis for each one, I will simply show you 7 of those trades exactly as they were placed. Below are 7 of the 30 new positions currently running in our portfolio. 1. ADBE Iron Condor Structure: Buy 235P / Sell 240P / Sell 310C / Buy 315C (37 DTE) Premium collected: $197; POP: 57%; P50 probability: 65%; Beta-weighted delta: +0.21; Theta: +$3/day; Max profit: $197; Max loss: $303 2. COIN Iron Condor Structure: Buy 130P / Sell 140P / Sell 240C / Buy 250C (65 DTE) Premium collected: $350; POP: 61%; P50 probability: 74%; Beta-weighted delta: -1.61; Theta: +$3.28/day; Max profit: $350; Max loss: $650 3. CRM Put Ratio Spread Structure: Buy 185P / Sell 2x175P (37 DTE) Credit received: $117; POP: 86%; Beta-weighted delta: +3.91; Theta: +$9.73; Max profit: $1,117 4. NKE Naked Put Structure: Sell 50P (65 DTE) Premium collected: $152; POP: 75%; P50 probability: 86%; Beta-weighted delta: +2.22; Theta: +$2.47; Max profit: $152 5. PEP Strangle Structure: Sell 145P / Sell 170C (37 DTE) Premium collected: $279; POP: 71%; P50 probability: 83%; Beta-weighted delta: -0.69; Theta: +$9.70; Max profit: $279 6. AMD Put Credit Spread Structure: Buy 180P / Sell 190P (37 DTE) Premium collected: $262; POP: 66%; P50 probability: 78%; Beta-weighted delta: +5.37; Theta: +$2.03; Max profit: $262 7. VISA Risk-Free Butterfly (Synthetic Bonds with Lottery Ticket)

Oracle reports after the bell today. At first glance it looks like a normal earnings event. Consensus expects $16.9B in revenue and $1.70 EPS (about 19% YoY growth). But in my personal view, the real story behind this release is AI infrastructure contracts. Over the last year Oracle's Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) have exploded to more than $500B; an enormous backlog tied to massive AI compute agreements. The market believes a large portion of that backlog comes from very large customers connected to the new generation of AI labs and data-center projects. Over the last year Oracle's Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) exploded above $500B; an enormous backlog, tied to massive AI compute agreements. The market believes a big portion of that backlog comes from very large customers connected to the new generation of AI labs and data-center projects. So tonight the key question is how real that backlog actually is. And that difference could matter enormously for volatility. If the market starts to believe the backlog is durable and diversified, Oracle suddenly becomes one of the core AI infrastructure stocks, and if the opposite happens, the narrative weakens quickly. In other words, tonight is less about earnings and more about how investors reprice the AI story around Oracle. The weekly options expiring this Friday imply an 9-11% move. That sounds large, but the distribution of Oracle earnings moves is strange. The last four earnings reactions were roughly: -3%, +13%, +36%, 11%. The average move is about 9%, but that average hides very fat tails, Oracle can move far more than the average suggests. This creates a strange situation. Systematic traders who compare the implied move with the average historical move see the straddle as expensive. But traders who remember the +36% move (like Tom Sosnoff 😉) know that Oracle can explode. So the options market is currently sitting right between those two views. Here's another unusual detail. Short-term put skew has steepened, meaning traders are paying up for downside protection, but at the same time there has been heavy call buying in longer-dated options. This tells us something interesting about sentiment. Investors are nervous about the near-term risks around the earnings event, but they still want exposure to the long-term AI upside. That combination leads to strong front-week volatility followed by sharp IV crush once the event passes.

WTI is currently at $87.50. as the war in the Middle East rages on. A 2% sell-off in the DJIA may present a buying opportunity late in the trading day. First purchase will be ORLA mainly due to the fact that earnings come out March 19th and I expect a run-up until then. ORLA closed yesterday at $18.36. I would like to get in at $17.50 but only if I get a buy signal.

As some of you know, I'm currently stuck in the Middle East while the situation here is quite tense with rockets and drones. Not exactly the environment I expected to be working from. The strange upside is that I suddenly have more time to create deeper content and share more institutional insights from our hedge fund, the kind of knowledge that can genuinely improve your trading decisions and long-term investing results. So I'd like your input. What type of content would help you the most in achieving your personal trading and investing goals? Vote below or comment with the number(s) you want most. This will help me prioritize what I publish next. You can choose more than one. I'm curious what would move the needle most for your trading performance.