'I Should've Learned Options Sooner,' Says a Day Trader. She Put Them Off for Years Because They Seemed Too Confusing
Wed, September 9, 2026 at 2:00 AM GMT+3 5 min read
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A day trader who spent years avoiding options because they seemed too complicated finally took the plunge last month. After making $280 from two trades in a single morning, she's wondering why she waited so long.
"I should've learned options sooner," she recently wrote on Reddit's r/optionstrading community. She said she's been day trading since 2021 but only started learning options last month.
"I'm honestly liking options way more so far," she said. "Hope I keep improving, cause today was a solid day."
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A $280 Morning – and a $700 Lesson
The Reddit poster's early success hasn't been a straight line, however. She said she lost $700 trading Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) in a single day last month. Since then, she's been trying to take smaller wins instead of holding out for every last dollar.
"After losing $700 from NVDA last month, I just take what I can and try not to get greedy," she wrote.
She primarily trades 0DTE options, contracts that expire the same day. When another commenter warned about the potentially addictive nature of options trading, she didn't dispute the underlying risk.
"Trust me, I already know this is gambling," she wrote.
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Her approach now includes a two-trade limit and a checklist covering relative strength, resistance levels, volume, delta, Bollinger Bands, the Relative Strength Index, Moving Average Convergence Divergence and Volume-Weighted Average Price.
She Used AI to Learn What Once Scared Her
Perhaps the most unusual part of her story is how she got started. Asked where she learned about options, she said she used Claude AI.
"I used Claude AI to teach me," she wrote. "Asked it to explain options to me like a 5 year old & how to read the charts better and it helped me so much."
Another new trader said they were using ChatGPT for detailed explanations and also wondered why they hadn't started sooner. The poster said that confusion had been the biggest thing keeping her away.
"I was always scared to start cause I was so confused on it lol but glad I learned," she said.
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For traders who are interested in options but don't want trading costs eating unnecessarily into their returns, Public has built its platform around giving investors more ways to help grow their wealth. Public is the only broker that pays rebates on options trades, offering $0.06-$0.18 per stock or ETF options contract traded, with industry-low index fees starting at $0.35 and margin rates as low as 3.95%.
More experienced traders weren't ready to celebrate just yet. "Famous last words," one replied. Others repeatedly joked that "the first one's free," while another cautioned, "The thing is to do this consistently."
The poster also admitted she tends to sell winning positions earlier than she'd like. But after her $700 loss, that restraint may be serving a purpose. As another trader told her, taking a profit early can hurt less than chasing a bigger gain and watching it disappear.
For now, she's learning the lesson that options can make money quickly, but they can take it away just as fast.
Image: Shutterstock
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This article 'I Should've Learned Options Sooner,' Says a Day Trader. She Put Them Off for Years Because They Seemed Too Confusing originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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