Options analytics
FORECAST — estimate, not a result. Performance policyGeneral and impersonal investment research. Not personal financial advice. Forecasts, valuations and model outputs are estimates and may be wrong. See Investment Disclaimer.
What this page is. Analytics on the listed option chains of the names MCH covers — how much of each chain is liquid enough to use, what option structures cost once the spread is crossed, and how previously published structures settled — with generic strategy education. Under the JvG Recommended Operating Model, MCH Analysis does not publish contract-specific option trade structures (an underlying with a strike, an expiry and a direction), so none appears on this page or in its data.
Equity research as of 2026-10-13 (today) · Option chain as of 2026-10-12 · 1d old
What was thrown away first. Of 145,132 listed contracts across the names covered, just 21,599 (14.9%) were liquid enough to build a structure from — the rest were rejected on too little open interest (92,134), no usable bid (17,872) and a spread too wide to cross (13,527). That filter runs before any structure is assembled, so the ranking never sees the illiquid part of the chain.
What was withheld, and why. The option chain for AVB, NSA, TMHC, WBS was more than 3 trading days behind the rest of the book (55d behind 2026-10-12; 81d behind 2026-10-12; 54d behind 2026-10-12), so those names were dropped rather than priced off a frozen quote. 3 structures were withheld from the shortlist because their expected value sat far outside the rest of the same family’s shortlist (robust z above 5, and more than 10pp from the family median). The option arithmetic is correct; the scenario set behind it puts too much probability above today’s price. A withheld structure is not adjusted, and its slot goes to the next-ranked structure.
What was assessed. 5,068 structures were built from the liquid contracts and assessed in full; 4,412 of them (87%) carry a negative confidence-adjusted expected value once the cost of crossing the spread is charged, which is what a roughly fairly priced market looks like. 1,631 rank across 605 names (at most 3 per name). The ranking’s shortlist — the top 20 per family, 80 structures — is still computed and pre-registered every night for the forward record below, but it is not published, and because it is cut from the top of the ranking it is not representative of the assessed population.
Strategy education — generic parameters
How common option structures behave, described without an underlying, a strike, an expiry or a size. This is education about payoff shapes, not a proposal to trade any of them.
| Structure | Payoff shape | How it loses |
|---|---|---|
| Long call | Pays when the underlying rises above the strike by more than the premium paid. | The whole premium is lost if the underlying finishes at or below the strike at expiry. |
| Bull call spread | A long call financed by a short call at a higher strike: a capped gain for a lower cost. | The net premium is the maximum loss; the gain is capped at the difference between the strikes less that premium. |
| Bear put spread | A long put financed by a short put at a lower strike: pays in a decline, capped. | The net premium is the maximum loss; the gain is capped. |
| Protective put | A put bought against shares already owned: a floor under the position for a premium. | The premium is a cost whether or not the floor is used; the protection ends at expiry. |
| Covered call | A call sold against shares already owned: premium income in exchange for capping the upside. | The shares keep their full downside; upside above the strike is given up. |
| Collar | A protective put paid for by a covered call: a band around a holding. | Upside is capped and the floor lasts only to expiry. |
| Put spread (short) | Collects a premium for accepting a bounded loss if the underlying falls. | Losses can reach the width of the spread less the premium collected. |
Track record
33 structures have settled on 22 underlyings, out of 1,386 registered — too few to measure the ranking by, so results are shown per family and no overall figure is given. The record: 1386 structures across 350 names and 11 families, each recorded at entry (legs, price, capital at risk) in a hash-chained ledger from 2026-08-05. The first expires 2026-08-21 and the last 2029-01-19; they settle as they expire and are never backfilled. Families are separate cohorts, never pooled. Of the 1,386 registered on 350 underlyings: 33 settled, 1353 not yet expired. The next expiry is 2026-10-16.
What this record does not cover. This record covers the shortlists of 18 ranking builds from 2026-08-05 to 2026-10-13; all 80 structures in tonight's 80-structure shortlist (top 20 per family, not published) are registered in it.
| Family | Settled | Underlyings | Made money | Median result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull Call Spread | 1 | 1 | 0 of 1 | -2.9% |
| Covered Call (if held) — option legs only | 9 | 8 | 8 of 9 | +1.7% |
| Iron Condor | 1 | 1 | 1 of 1 | +11.1% |
| Long Call | 8 | 8 | 2 of 8 | -20.9% |
| Protective Collar (if held) — option legs only | 1 | 1 | 1 of 1 | +2.6% |
| Protective Put (if held) — option legs only | 13 | 11 | 4 of 13 | -1.6% |
Each structure is held to expiry and settled against the closing price printed on its expiry date — not a dividend-adjusted price, which later dividends rewrite. A result is its profit or loss as a share of the capital at risk recorded when it was registered. The “(if held)” families are settled on their option legs only: a protective put’s result is what the protection cost or paid, not the return on the shares it protected.
The settled structures (historical) — 25 most recent of 33
| Name | Family | Expired | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GNRC | Long Call | 2026-10-09 | +53.6% |
| WDC | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-10-02 | +1.1% |
| KHC | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-10-02 | +1.4% |
| AAL | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-10-02 | +2.7% |
| KHC | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-25 | +1.4% |
| TSCO | Bull Call Spread | 2026-09-18 | -2.9% |
| PLD | Long Call | 2026-09-18 | -68.6% |
| MS | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -1.6% |
| KMI | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -2.5% |
| ISRG | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -2.4% |
| ISRG | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +2.9% |
| DHR | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -1.3% |
| DHR | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -2.7% |
| DHR | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -1.7% |
| DECK | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +9.7% |
| DECK | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +5.5% |
| DECK | Iron Condor | 2026-09-18 | +11.1% |
| CME | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -2.7% |
| CME | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +0.9% |
| BX | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -2.3% |
| BX | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +5.4% |
| AXP | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +1.4% |
| AXP | Protective Put (if held) | 2026-09-18 | -0.2% |
| AXP | Covered Call (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +1.9% |
| AMT | Protective Collar (if held) | 2026-09-18 | +2.6% |
7 withdrawn. A structure withdrawn from the shortlist stays in the record: the registration stands and the withdrawal is recorded beside it with its date and reason. A withdrawn trade is carried as neither live nor settled.
Withheld by analyst review: ACI, APP, CPT, CTVA, FICO, FRT, GATX, GLPI, L, NLY, OHI, PAYX, RGLD, TPL, TTMI, VNO. These names are excluded from the ranking entirely — the same hold that stops their research report being published stops any structure on them being assessed or ranked.
This ranking's shortlist was first published on 2026-07-31. Its forward record registered the 2026-08-05 build, then every build from 2026-09-19 (AM-098) — and it still registers every night's shortlist, although contract-specific structures are no longer published (Model B). The builds of 2026-07-31–2026-08-04 and 2026-08-06–2026-09-18 were never registered and are NOT reconstructed — backfilling registrations after the outcomes have begun is not a record of anything.
The v1 overlay’s record, reported separately. The v1 overlay pre-registers structures every night under its own rules: 113,612 pre-registered since 2026-07-28, 23,031 settled and 90,581 not yet settled — 90,416 marked and open, 18 past expiry and not settled, 147 not marked on the latest run. Every stuck one is listed on the Accuracy page with the owner’s blocker record, or the statement that none is on file. 2,746 duplicate registrations are excluded from that count rather than netted off in silence. Those structures were selected under different rules, so the two records are kept apart and never pooled.
Where the return comes from. Our own backtest attributes essentially all of this sleeve’s historical return to the volatility risk premium — implied volatility persistently above realised — not to any ranking. The edge tested as systematic, not selective, and the sample is optimistic on frictions: a screen over a known premium, not evidence of selection.
What this cannot tell you
- Volatility structures compete for the same per-name candidate budget as everything else (the most tradeable few per name are carried forward). When they were introduced (AM-017) 243 were admitted and 171 structures of other families displaced, so the income, leverage and hedge populations can change without anything about those structures changing.
- Populations in this feed: 145,132 listed contracts, of which 21,599 passed the per-contract liquidity gate; 5,068 structures built from them and assessed in full, 4,412 of which (87%) carry a negative confidence-adjusted expected value; 1,631 ranked across 605 names (at most 3 per name); and a 80-structure shortlist — the top 20 per family across 4 families — which was formerly published, is still registered every night in the forward record, and is not published. The shortlist is cut from the top of the ranking, so it is not representative of the assessed population.
- Held to expiry — early exercise and assignment are not modelled.
- The option chain is an end-of-day snapshot; there is no per-contract quote timestamp, so quote freshness cannot be measured and is not claimed.
- The house distribution is the engine's own persisted quantile grid, sampled exactly where that grid exists and reconstructed from stored moments where it does not. The published structures do not record which applied to them; where a reconstruction was used, its error is an input to model_confidence, and it carries its own error.
- The house view is a valuation distribution at a one-year horizon, re-horizoned to each option's expiry — drift scaled linearly in time, dispersion as its square root. It is not a forecast of the path in between, and for short expiries most of the house's conviction is scaled away, by design.
- 33 structure(s) registered since 2026-08-05 have settled, reported per family and never pooled — far too few to measure the ranking by. Every published build is registered (AM-098): a structure shown on consecutive nights is registered again at each night's price whenever the chain moved, so outcomes overlap and the structure count overstates the independent evidence — results are also given by distinct underlying. The v1 record continues separately and the two are never pooled.
- Not assessed or ranked because the name's rating is suspended (31): APG, APPF, ARWR, AVGO, BTSG, CAVA, CF, CRBG, CYTK, DOCN, EQH, FN, G, HIMS, INCY, KNF, MMS, MOS, MU, MZTI, NOVT, ORA, PBF, PEN, PII, QRVO, ROKU, SITM, STX, TTWO, V. A suspended name's house distribution is the valuation its report withdraws, so no structure weighted on it enters this feed until the rating is restored.
- MCH is not a registered financial adviser. Nothing here is advice or an executable quote.