Opty Exclusivedraws on the price

The cone the options market itself is pricing: the range the stock is expected to stay inside by each expiry.

On this chart: Straddle-implied range per listed expiry, drawn as a forward cone.

The expected move is read from option prices themselves — what the at-the-money straddle pays for each listed expiry, converted into the range the market is pricing for the stock by that date and drawn as a cone extending forward from the last bar. This is not a model's opinion; it is the options market's own consensus, at the prices where it is currently putting money.

Each rung of the cone is one expiry's implied range — roughly a one-standard-deviation statement, meaning the market prices about a two-thirds chance of finishing inside it. A wide cone is expensive movement; a narrow one, cheap. The cone repricing wider without the stock moving is the options market getting nervous on its own.

This is the strike-selection overlay drawn in the option market's native units. A put strike outside the cone sits beyond the move the market is charging for — which is precisely why it pays less; premium and cushion are the same quantity viewed from opposite sides. Comparing where a candidate strike sits against the cone frames that trade-off visually before any Greeks are consulted.

Like everything in this guide, these are descriptions of conditions and reference levels — context for your own decisions, not instructions to trade.