MarketCraft
Paper trading, learning, and review for serious market practice.
Trade Builder
Build and execute paper credit spreads
Live Monitor
Track P&L and exit signals in real time
Trade Journal
Equity curve and full trade history
Learn the Fundamentals
Options Trading Concepts
Everything you need to understand before your first trade.
MarketCraft is a paper trading simulator and learning workspace. Practice strategies, track your performance, and build discipline before trading with real capital.
The Concept
What is options selling?
Most people think of trading as buying stocks and hoping the price goes up. Options selling is different: you collect a cash premium? up front and profit as long as the market does not move too far against you.
Every option contains time value, and that value decays toward zero as expiration gets closer. A theta decay strategy? is built around selling that time value and managing the risk before expiry becomes dangerous.
The core idea is simple: options are often priced as if the market will move more than it actually does. This app helps you practice selling that overpriced insurance using defined-risk structures instead of naked exposure.
~75%
Probabilistic edge
High win-rate setups aim to expire worthless more often than not.
0DTE
Fast time decay
Same-day expiry means theta works fastest, but gamma risk rises too.
$0
Real money at risk
Paper mode lets you practice the workflow without capital exposure.
Defined
Known max loss
Credit spreads and condors cap the downside before entry.
Strategies
Four strategies. One disciplined workflow.
MarketCraft now supports directional spreads, neutral premium-selling structures, and a defined-risk debit butterfly. Explore the setups below, then move into Trade Builder to simulate them.
Bear Call Spread
?Bearish to neutral · defined risk · 2 legs
Sell an out-of-the-money call, buy a higher call for protection, and collect a credit. You profit if the underlying stays below your short call strike.
Example setup (SPY at $520)
Bull Put Spread
?Bullish to neutral · defined risk · 2 legs
Sell an out-of-the-money put, buy a lower put for protection, and collect a credit. You profit if the underlying stays above your short put strike.
Example setup (SPY at $520)
Iron Condor
?Same-day expiry friendly · neutral bias · 4 legs
Two credit spreads combined: one call spread above price and one put spread below price. You collect more credit, but you need the market to stay inside a range.
Example setup (SPY at $520)
Butterfly
Pin-the-price trade · defined risk · 4 legs
A butterfly is a debit strategy that profits most if price finishes near a specific middle strike. Risk is limited to the debit paid, but the trade requires more precision than a spread or condor.
Example setup (SPY at $520)
The Greeks
Understanding option risk.
Greeks measure how an option responds to price, time, and volatility. Click any card to see an explanation matched to your knowledge level.
Delta
How much the position moves for a $1 move in the underlying.
Click ? to learn more
Theta
How much value the position gains from time passing.
Click ? to learn more
Gamma
How quickly delta changes as the underlying moves.
Click ? to learn more
Vega
How sensitive the position is to implied volatility changes.
Click ? to learn more
Key Concepts
Everything you need to know.
These concepts appear across the app. Click them to open a full explanation.
What is an Option?
The foundation of what you are buying and selling.
Credit Spread
Two options, one trade, defined risk, cash collected up front.
Implied Volatility
The market’s fear gauge. Higher IV means richer premium.
Probability OTM
Your estimated chance of expiring worthless.
Max Loss
The worst-case loss, always known in advance for defined-risk trades.
Profit Target
Why many traders close early instead of holding to expiry.
Risk Management
Capital preservation is the first rule.
Theta strategies can win often, but the losing trades are usually larger than the winners. That means sizing discipline, daily loss limits, and planned exits matter as much as strategy selection.
MarketCraft carries these settings through the product so your screening, planning, and execution stay aligned.
Risk Cap: 5% per trade
?Maximum loss on a single trade = $5,000.
Daily Loss Stop: 2% per day
?Once you lose $2,000 in a day, the plan is to stop trading and protect capital.
Close at 50% of max profit
?Many spreads are managed before expiry to reduce late-day gamma risk while still keeping most of the premium.
How It Works
Your trading workflow.
Browse the Option Chain
See live strikes for SPY, QQQ, or IWM. Filter by delta, premium, and your current Greek thresholds to narrow down candidates.
Open Chain Viewer →Build the Trade
Choose your strategy, quantity, profit target, and stop-loss. The app shows breakeven, Greeks, probability, and trade context before you submit.
Open Trade Builder →Preview and Execute
Review the paper order details, risk checks, and warnings. Then submit a simulated trade with no real money involved.
Preview an order →Monitor in Real Time
Track P&L, exit signals, and time-based risk. You can close manually or follow the plan as conditions develop.
Open Monitor →Review and Learn
Use the journal and backtester to understand what worked, what failed, and how your rules behave over time.
Open Journal →Learn at your pace.
Every important term in the app includes a ? badge. Click it to see an explanation tailored to your knowledge level.
Beginner
Plain-English definitions, examples, and warnings.
Intermediate
Balanced explanations focused on trade-offs.
Expert
Compact technical definitions and formulas.
Backtesting
Proof before you trade.
Before you paper trade a strategy, you can run it against historical data and see how your rules would have behaved over time.
Adjust delta target?, spread width?, profit target, and stop loss, then study the equity curve?, drawdown?, and Sharpe ratio?.
Open Backtester →Historical simulation
Replay your exact entry and exit rules against real data.
Configurable delta
See how strike selection changes outcomes over time.
Equity curve
Visualize cumulative performance and consistency.
Drawdown and Sharpe
Understand the pain as well as the returns.
Ready to start?
Your first paper trade takes about a minute.
No real money. No account blow-up risk. Full workflow realism. Learn the mechanics first, then build discipline around them.
MarketCraft is an educational paper trading simulator. Not financial advice. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss. Practice first, and use real capital only with full understanding of the risks.