How ACondor works

The edge in options premium selling is simple to state: implied volatility, what the market prices into options, tends to overstate the move that actually happens. Selling that gap is the structural edge.

The metric that tells you when premium is expensive is IV Rank: where current implied vol sits in its trailing one-year range. (IV_now − IV_low) / (IV_high − IV_low) × 100. At IV Rank 30 you are in the upper third of the historical range. At 80 you are near the annual peak. ACondor only sells when IV Rank meets its engine-specific floor.

ACondor selects short strikes by delta, not by arbitrary distance from the money. Delta approximates the probability that an option finishes in-the-money. A 20-delta short strike sits near the edge of the expected move, with roughly an 80% chance of expiring worthless. A 16-delta short strike sits at approximately one standard deviation, with roughly an 84% chance of expiring worthless.

The mechanical engine uses 20-delta shorts, placing the condor around the expected move. The earnings engine also uses 20-delta defined-risk shorts, keeping them outside the implied move rather than reaching for richer premium inside it. The contraction engine uses 16-delta shorts for higher probability on the faster, shorter cycle.

Every open position is evaluated on every cycle. Rules fire in this priority order. The first rule that matches wins:

1. Assignment cleanup. If a stock leg exists (early assignment occurred), close the whole position immediately.
2. News gate. High-confidence opposing news. Close at ≥ 0.90 confidence regardless of loss depth. Reduce by half at ≥ 0.75. Flag only at ≥ 0.60.
3. Fast exit. For news-triggered entries, a sliding profit target: 15% within 30 minutes, 25% within 2 hours, 35% within 12 hours.
4. VIX collapse. Market-wide VIX drops 5+ points since entry and the position is profitable by at least 25% of max. Harvest the IV crush.
5. Expiry flatten. On expiration day after 1:00 PM ET, close the position regardless of P&L. Pin and assignment risk are not worth holding for.
6. Assignment risk (proactive). An ITM short with extrinsic value below $0.10 per share is pulled before assignment.
7. Per-engine rules. Profit target (50% for mechanical / earnings / contraction; 82% for directional) → hard stop (off by default) → delta defense (roll ladder) → earnings avoid → DTE backstop.
8. Hold. None of the above fired; hold through to the next cycle.

When a short strike is tested, its delta reaches 0.45 or the underlying has moved more than 1.5x the implied move at entry, ACondor engages the roll ladder. For undefined-risk structures (strangles), it rolls the tested side out in time and further OTM for a net credit.

For defined-risk structures (iron condors), the wing already caps the loss; the bot prefers to let it ride or close rather than roll, following tastytrade's stated stance. A vertical roll, bringing the untested side in toward the money for extra credit, is available but off by default.

• VIX kill switch at ≥ 35 halts new entries for the rest of the session.
• Daily loss circuit breaker: -$500 or -5% of NLV, whichever hits first.
• Weekly loss circuit breaker: -$1,500 or -10%.
• FOMC and CPI macro halt windows.
• Intraday risk-off halt: SPY drops 1.5% or VIX jumps 5 points on the day.
• Sector concentration cap: 3 positions per sector, adjustable globally or per account from the dashboard.
• Allocation cap: 10% of net liq deployed by default.
• Account-wide buying power ceiling: 35% by default, measured against the broker's own remaining buying power, so positions you opened yourself count toward it too.
• Beta-weighted portfolio delta band: once the book leans further than 1% of net liq per one-point S&P move, only trades that bring it back toward balanced are opened. Entry side only, it never closes or shrinks an existing position.
• Position count cap, configured per account.
• Per-trade risk cap: $700 flat by default, switchable to a percent-of-NLV mode.
• Volatility risk premium gate on the premium-selling engines, on by default: implied volatility must actually exceed recent realised volatility before selling.

ACondor manages multiple tastytrade accounts simultaneously from a single dashboard. Each account has its own credentials, dry-run toggle, trading-enabled toggle, and per-account config overrides. The scanner runs once; positions and fills are isolated per account number in the database. One bot process handles them all.

Each position row carries at-a-glance status cues: an account chip showing which account and environment (paper or live) it belongs to, an earnings badge when a name is inside its earnings window, and a mark-freshness indicator so a stale quote is never mistaken for a current one.

A premium-selling strategy earns in many small increments, which means friction compounds. Every order records the broker's own fee calculation, commissions plus regulatory and clearing charges, taken from the same validation the broker runs before accepting the trade. Performance is reported gross and net of those fees side by side, so a strategy is never judged on a number it did not actually keep. Where a trade pre-dates fee capture the dashboard says so rather than quietly counting it as free.

Closed trades book from actual fills, never from estimates, and live positions are valued from the broker's own marks. Roll a position and you get two figures, both true: the campaign result since the trade was opened, including every credit and buyback along the way, and the profit on just the legs currently open, which is what your brokerage shows.

If you close one of the bot's positions yourself in tastytrade, it does not sit there as an unresolved row. On its next pass ACondor reads your account's transaction history, finds the fills and fees that actually executed, records the real result, and notifies you that it did. When the history cannot fully account for a position it stops and asks rather than guessing, because a plausible number in a ledger is worse than a gap.