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Thursday, October 22, 2026

5 PM Eastern | 4 PM Central | 2 PM Pacific

With Tony Rihan & Tony Battista

We’re Changing Today’s Office Hours Agenda!

Given today’s violent market selloff and the tremendous number of questions we’ve been receiving from GYP members, Tony Battista and I have decided to change today’s Office Hours into an OPEN Q&A session.

Our originally scheduled topic, “Before We Place ANY Options Trade: Our 7-Step Decision Process,” will be moved to next Thursday.

Today, we’re focusing on what matters most: YOUR QUESTIONS and YOUR PORTFOLIOS.

When markets move violently, we believe the priority should shift from finding new trades to understanding and managing the risks we already have.

What We’ll Discuss Today

We’ll open the floor to members and focus on the issues that matter most during a market selloff:

• Portfolio Delta: How much has your directional exposure changed as the market declined?

• Buying Power & Margin: What happens when volatility increases and margin requirements expand?

• Managing Short Puts: When should you consider rolling, adjusting or reducing exposure?

• Naked Units: How many uncovered positions are too many when the market moves against you?

• Hedging: When does it make sense to add protection, and when might it be too late or too expensive?

• Finding Opportunities: Should we sell additional premium into a declining market or preserve our buying power?

• Risk Management: How do we avoid making emotional decisions during volatile markets?

And most importantly, we want to hear YOUR questions.

Bring your positions, your concerns, your trading scenarios and anything else you’d like Tony and me to discuss.

Remember: Volatility Creates Both Risk and Opportunity

A sharp market decline can be uncomfortable, especially for traders carrying short puts and positive delta.

But these are also the moments when disciplined portfolio management becomes particularly important.

We don’t want to panic. We don’t want to chase trades. And we certainly don’t want to increase risk simply because option premiums look attractive.

We want to understand our exposures, evaluate our alternatives and make thoughtful decisions.

That’s what today’s Office Hours will be about.

🔒 GYP PAID MEMBERS — JOIN TODAY’S LIVE Q&A

Not a Paid GYP Member Yet?

This is exactly why we created Grow Your Pile.

Markets don’t always move the way we expect, and having access to experienced options traders to discuss risk management, adjustments and portfolio decisions can be especially valuable during periods of uncertainty.

Become a paid GYP member to join today’s live Q&A and access our growing library of educational sessions.

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Our own account, gros…

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Portfolio 1 filled two tickets this morning: one more /MES short put and an SPX broken wing butterfly. Net across the two opening tickets: $1,572.5…

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Our own account, gross of commissions and fees. No…

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Portfolio 2 filled one ticket this morning. Net on the new position: $1,125.00 credit.

Our own account, gross of commissions and fees. Not advice…

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With Tony Rihan & Tony Battista

Thursday, October 22, 2026

5 PM Eastern | 4 PM Central | 2 PM Pacific

How Do We Actually Decide Which Options Trades to Place?

Have you ever wondered what goes through our minds BEFORE we place a trade?

Do we simply look for an attractive premium?

Do we search for options with a high probability of profit?

Do we choose a stock or ETF we think will move higher or lower?

Not exactly.

At Grow Your Pile, our trading process begins with something much more important:

OUR EXISTING PORTFOLIO.

Before looking for a new trade, we want to understand exactly where our portfolio stands, what risks we’re already carrying, and what we want the next trade to accomplish.

This Thursday, we’re opening up our trading process and walking GYP members through the seven steps we follow when evaluating, modeling and executing a new options trade.

And we’re going to do it with practical examples using our trading platforms and portfolio metrics.

The GYP 7-Step Trade Decision Process

STEP 1 — Analyze Our Portfolio BEFORE Looking for Trades

We’ll start by examining the indicators that drive our decisions:

• Net Liquidation Value: How much is our portfolio actually worth?

• Delta: Are we currently too bullish or too bearish?

• Theta: How much theoretical daily time decay are we generating?

• Vega: How exposed are we to changes in implied volatility?

• Buying Power Reduction: How much capital capacity are we already using?

• Naked Units: How many uncovered option contracts are we carrying?

These numbers help us determine whether we should be adding risk, reducing risk, or simply doing nothing.

STEP 2 — Decide What Our Portfolio Needs

Before selecting a strategy, we ask:

Do we want MORE long delta or MORE short delta?

Maybe our portfolio has become too bullish after a market rally.

Maybe a selloff has increased our delta exposure and we need protection.

Perhaps our theta is too low, or we’re already using more buying power than we’d like.

The objective isn’t to find another trade. It’s to find a trade that improves our portfolio.

STEP 3 — Find the Right Opportunity

Once we know what we’re looking for, we begin evaluating opportunities.

We’ll discuss how we choose between SPY, QQQ, GLD and other liquid underlyings, and how we evaluate:

• Implied volatility

• Expected moves

• Delta and strike selection

• Days to expiration (DTE)

• Premium and extrinsic value

• Liquidity and bid/ask spreads

• Existing portfolio concentration

We’ll also compare different structures, including short puts, Jade Lizards, put ratio spreads, call credit spreads and long-call diagonals.

STEP 4 — Model the Trade BEFORE Executing

This is one of the most important parts of the session.

A trade might look fantastic on its own but be completely wrong for your portfolio.

We’ll demonstrate how we model a potential trade and evaluate what happens to our overall portfolio if we add it.

How much does our delta change?

How much theta are we adding?

What happens to our vega?

How much additional buying power will the position consume?

Are we adding another naked unit?

And most importantly:

Is the additional premium worth the additional risk?

STEP 5 — Stress-Test the Trade and Evaluate Position Size

We’ll discuss why the number of naked contracts matters just as much as today’s portfolio Greeks.

What happens if SPY drops 5%?

What if implied volatility spikes?

What happens to our delta and margin requirements?

We’ll explain why we often prefer fewer contracts and more flexibility rather than maximizing the number of positions we can open.

Just because your broker gives you the buying power doesn’t mean you should use it.

STEP 6 — Execute the Trade

Once we’re comfortable with the proposed trade, we’ll show how we approach execution.

We’ll discuss limit orders, bid/ask spreads, execution quality and why we don’t want to chase a trade simply because we decided to enter it.

We’ll also show why it’s important to verify the portfolio’s actual Greeks and buying-power usage after getting filled.

STEP 7 — Know How You’ll Manage the Trade BEFORE Entering

What happens if the trade moves against us?

When would we consider rolling?

When should we take profits?

What happens if our delta doubles?

And what if our buying-power usage rises above our preferred range?

A trade without a management plan is an incomplete trading decision.

LIVE DEMONSTRATION: Let’s Find a Trade Together!

During Office Hours, we’ll take a hypothetical portfolio, examine its risk indicators, and work through the entire decision-making process.

We’ll look for potential trades, compare alternatives, model their impact on the portfolio, evaluate position sizing and determine whether the trade deserves to be executed.

We’ll also show an example of a trade that looks attractive on its own but doesn’t belong in the portfolio.

Because sometimes the best trading decision is the trade you choose NOT to make.

The Big Takeaway

At Grow Your Pile, we believe there is a fundamental difference between managing individual trades and managing an entire portfolio.

Our process is simple:

Understand the Portfolio → Identify What It Needs → Find the Opportunity → Model the Trade → Evaluate Risk → Execute → Manage

We’re not trying to collect the most premium or place the greatest number of trades.

We’re trying to build a portfolio where every new position has a purpose.

The best trade isn’t necessarily the one with the highest probability of profit. It’s the one that makes sense for the portfolio you already own.

If you’ve ever wondered how Tony Battista and I decide which trades to place—and which trades to avoid—this is an Office Hours session you won’t want to miss.

🔒 GYP PAID MEMBERS — YOUR EXCLUSIVE LIVE INVITATION

You’re Invited to Join Us LIVE!

GYP Office Hours: Before We Place ANY Options Trade

Thursday, October 22, 2026

5 PM Eastern | 4 PM Central | 2 PM Pacific

With Tony Rihan & Tony Battista

🎥 YOUR EXCLUSIVE STREAMYARD MEETING LINK:

Not a Paid GYP Member Yet?

Our paid members get access to live Office Hours sessions, our educational video library, portfolio-management discussions and additional GYP member resources.

Link: www.GrowYourPile.com

We look forward to seeing you Thursday!

Tony Rihan & Tony Battista
Grow Your Pile

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