Somewhere on your broker's app right now there's a same-day option trading for less than the price of a coffee.
That's the pitch. Cheap ticket. Big number if it hits. Done by dinner.
It's not a fringe bet anymore. More than half of everything traded in the S&P 500's benchmark index option now expires the same day it's bought. Four years ago that wasn't even possible five days a week. Now it's the default.
A 2023 study tracked what happened to the retail traders buying those cheap same-day contracts.
On the average day, they lost about $364,000 buying them. And made about $122,000 selling the other side.
Per contract, the buyer's average result was −$8.05. Direction wasn't the problem, most of the time.
Something else was.
A same-day option doesn't decay like a normal one. It doesn't pin the same way either, and assignment doesn't wait around for anyone the way it normally would. A position that's up a double at 1:40 in the afternoon can be worth exactly zero by 4:00, on a move too small to matter in any other product, because there's no time left for anything to average out.
Most people trading these five days a week have never seen the actual curve their option's value is riding down. They've seen the price. Not the mechanism underneath it deciding the price.
This report is that mechanism, laid out hour by hour, with the research, the math, and a real simulation behind every claim.
All of it below, with the exact page where each piece lives.
A Trading Habits Report
The 0DTE Report
What zero-days-to-expiration options do inside a single trading session, and what the research says about who's paying for the other side of the bet.
- Length 20 pages, with 4 original charts, a mechanics case study, and a 5,000-path simulation
- Author TradingHabits.com
- Format PDF, delivered as an instant download right after checkout
- Covers How 0DTE options work minute to minute, what published research says about who wins, and a pre-trade checklist for anyone trading them
No stock picks, no signals, no ticker recommendations. Only the mechanics, the research, and the math.
What's Inside
20 Things This Report Actually Says
- 01Why a same-day option is a different animal than a normal one, not just a shorter version of it.Page 4
- 02The exact two-year stretch when SPX went from "some days have same-day options" to every single trading day being one.Page 5
- 03How 0DTE went from 5% of SPX options volume to 59% of it, with the year-by-year numbers behind the climb.Page 6
- 04The specific psychological structure that makes a same-day option feel so much better to trade than it performs.Page 7
- 05Why an option that's right about direction can still lose money, hour by hour, on a chart that barely moved.Page 8
- 06A full hypothetical session walked through minute by minute in a real 0DTE trade, including the moment it was briefly a double.Page 9
- 07The two mechanics almost every new 0DTE trader gets caught by in the final ten minutes before the close.Page 10
- 08What a 2023 study found when it tracked more than 75% of retail S&P 500 options trades back to their actual results.Page 11
- 09The average dollar amount retail accounts lost buying 0DTE options on a typical day, and the amount they made selling the other side.Page 11
- 10The per-contract number that separates a debit order's average result from a credit order's, and the three reasons the math tilts that way.Page 12
- 11How a market maker's hedging on heavy 0DTE days can end up driving more of the day's move than any actual news.Page 13
- 12What "pinning" actually is, and why a position can swing from real value to zero on a move too small to matter any other day.Page 14
- 13The assignment surprise that can turn a small, forgotten option into 100 unplanned shares by Monday morning.Page 14
- 14A 5,000-path simulation of a $50-a-day 0DTE habit run across a full year, and what percentage of simulated years finished in the red.Page 15
- 15The median result, the best simulated year, and the worst one, all from the identical starting assumptions.Page 16
- 16The four decisions, made before the market opens rather than during it, that separate a bounded bet from a blown-up account.Page 17
- 17Why a cheap option's low dollar price is exactly the thing that talks traders into an oversized position.Page 17
- 18Six questions built to be asked before the order goes in, not after the account finds out the hard way.Page 18
- 19A full plain-English glossary of the terms that matter here, from gamma exposure to pin risk to assignment.Page 19
- 20Every source cited by name, with the specific study, report, or exchange data behind every number in the report.Page 20
HABITS
★
Certificate of Guarantee
60-Day, No-Questions-Asked
If The 0DTE Report doesn't earn its place on your desk, email us any time within 60 days of purchase for a full refund. No form to fill out. No reason required.
Instant Download
$9One-time payment. No subscription.
Order Now20-PAGE PDF · DELIVERED IMMEDIATELY AFTER CHECKOUT · 60-DAY GUARANTEE
Behind The Report
Zero Days: How Same-Day Options Took Over
The Timeline
SPX index options launched in 1983 with one expiration a month. Cboe added weekly Friday expirations in 2005, then Monday and Wednesday expirations in 2016. For most of that history, most days of the week still had no same-day option to trade at all.
That changed in April and May of 2022, when Cboe added Tuesday and Thursday expirations, completing a full Monday-through-Friday cycle for the first time. A zero-day option became available every single trading day, for the first time in the product's history.
What Happened Next
Volume followed the new supply fast. 0DTE contracts made up roughly 5% of SPX options volume in 2016. By 2025, Cboe's own numbers put that share at 59%, a record 2.3 million contracts a day on average. Across the entire U.S. listed options market, 0DTE volume grew from 21.5% of the total in 2024 to 24.1% in 2025.
The growth is real and it's still climbing. What hasn't kept pace, according to the research cited throughout this report, is the average retail trader's understanding of what a same-day option does differently from a normal one.
0DTE's Share Of SPX Options Volume
Cboe's own reported numbers: 0DTE contracts were about 5% of SPX options volume in 2016. By 2025, after Tuesday and Thursday expirations completed the daily cycle in 2022, that share had climbed to 59%, a record 2.3 million contracts a day on average.
Try It: Slide Between 2016 And 2025
Straight-line interpolation between Cboe's two cited data points, 5% in 2016 and 59% in 2025, not real year-by-year figures. The actual climb wasn't a straight line. This is here to show the scale of the move, not its exact shape.
Background only. The report itself walks through the mechanics, the research, and a full simulation of what a small daily 0DTE bet does to an account over a year.
Common Questions
When did the S&P 500 get an option expiring every single day of the week?
Not until 2022. Cboe added Tuesday and Thursday expirations to SPX options in April and May of that year, completing a full Monday-through-Friday cycle for the first time in the product's history.
How much of the S&P options market is 0DTE now?
Cboe puts it at 59% of SPX options volume in 2025, up from about 5% in 2016, a record 2.3 million contracts a day on average.
Did retail traders make money buying these on average?
A 2023 study tracking more than 75% of retail S&P 500 options trades found the average day cost buyers about $364,000 and paid sellers about $122,000. Per contract, the average buyer's result was −$8.05.
Does this report recommend specific trades or a signal service?
No. It covers the mechanics, the research, and a 5,000-path simulation of a $50-a-day habit. No stock or ticker recommendations anywhere in it.