What can TradingView do for options traders?

TradingView's core job is the chart of the underlying: candles, levels, indicators and alerts on SPY, QQQ or a single stock. That is where the trade idea comes from, because an option's price follows the underlying, adjusted for time and volatility.

As of October 2026, TradingView also has options tools for many US stocks and ETFs, including SPY and QQQ. You open them from Products > Options in the top menu, or from the Options tab on a symbol page. Here is what they cover, and what they do not:

  • Options chain: calls and puts by expiration and strike, with bid, ask, volume, implied volatility, the Greeks and a break-even price for each contract, in calls-only, puts-only or side-by-side views.
  • Strategy builder: build a position from one or more legs and see a chart of its profit and loss, and its Greeks, against the price of the underlying.
  • Volatility tab: a view of implied volatility across the chain.
  • Earnings dates: on stock charts, past and upcoming earnings show as E icons along the time axis. Turn them on under chart Settings > Events.
  • What it does not do: no chart indicator turns a signal into a contract for you. Most indicators, ours included, calculate from the underlying's candles and volume and never see an option's spread or IV. The order is placed with your broker, on its own platform or through TradingView's trading panel if your broker connects to it.

What is the best indicator for options trading on TradingView?

People search for a TradingView options indicator as if one could pick winning contracts. None can. An option is a position on the size of the move in the underlying, its timing and its volatility, and a chart indicator can only help with the first two. So the best indicators for options on TradingView are the ones that give clear levels on the underlying: where to enter, where the idea is wrong and where price is likely headed. Without those three numbers you cannot choose a sensible strike.

Useful building blocks are support and resistance, VWAP for intraday bias, the higher-timeframe trend, and ATR to compare the typical move with the distance to your strike. Our list of the best TradingView indicators covers the free ones, and multi-timeframe analysis shows how to stack timeframes.

UpTickFlow, our invite-only TradingView indicator, is built around levels. It runs on the chart of the underlying, scores every setup from 0 to 100 and shows only A+ setups. Signals appear after the candle closes, do not repaint, and come with an entry, a stop and a target drawn on the chart before the trade. It stays quiet in choppy markets, in abnormal volatility, in the first minutes after the open, in the midday lull and the last 30 minutes, when price has already left the level, or when there is no room to the target. It does not read options data, choose strikes or expirations, or place trades, and it was not built or tested specifically for options.

How to trade options with TradingView signals, step by step

The workflow has three parts: the signal on the underlying, the choice of contract and management on the underlying. Here it is from a long signal. For a short signal, swap the call for a put and flip the levels.

  1. Get the signal on the underlying: direction, entry, stop and target, on a closed candle.
  2. Pick the type: a long signal means a call, a short signal means a put.
  3. Pick the expiration: enough time for the target to be reached, plus a buffer. Check that no earnings date falls inside it unless you mean to hold through one.
  4. Pick the strike with the target in mind. A strike at or slightly in the money has enough delta to gain from an ordinary move to the target; a strike past the target only pays if price arrives fast or overshoots your plan. Our guide on how to choose a strike price goes deeper.
  5. Check the contract: the spread as a percent of the premium, volume, open interest and implied volatility.
  6. Size by premium at risk: decide the most you would accept losing if the option went to zero, and buy only as many contracts as fit inside that amount.
  7. Enter with a limit order near the midpoint, not a market order.
  8. Manage on the underlying: when it hits the stop or the target, close the option. If neither happens by your time limit, close it anyway.

Turn your phone sideways to read the drawing. Tap to close.

A hand-drawn flowchart of the eight steps: 1 the signal on the underlying with entry, stop and target; 2 a long signal means a call, a short one a put; 3 an expiration with time for the target plus a buffer; 4 a strike the target can pass; 5 check spread, volume, open interest and IV; 6 size by premium at risk; 7 a limit order near the midpoint; 8 exit at the stop, the target or the time limit on the underlying. Steps 1 and 8 happen on the chart, steps 2 to 7 in the options chain.

How to turn the entry, stop and target into an option plan

The signal's levels belong to the underlying, so your option needs its own numbers, worked out before you enter. Delta gives a rough translation: a 0.50-delta call gains about $0.50 per share, or $50 per contract, for each $1 the underlying rises, before time decay and changes in implied volatility. As the move goes your way delta grows, and the longer you hold, the more decay takes back.

So estimate two prices: what the option may be worth when the underlying hits your stop, and when it hits your target. The first is your planned loss, the second your planned gain. If the planned gain is not clearly bigger than the planned loss after the spread, the contract does not fit the signal. Our options profit calculator shows values at expiration, and the guide to the options Greeks explains the moves before it.

The planned loss is not the maximum loss. A gap, a halt or a fast market can carry the underlying past your stop before you can act, and the option can lose 100% of its premium. That is why the size comes from the premium, while the stop on the underlying decides when you get out. The exit rules:

  • The underlying hits the stop: close the option, whatever its price.
  • The underlying hits the target: close it, or close most of it and trail a stop on the underlying for the rest.
  • Time stop: if neither level is hit within the time you planned, close it, because decay keeps working while you wait.
  • Expiration: do not drift into it by accident. A US stock or ETF option that finishes $0.01 or more in the money is normally exercised automatically.

Scalping version: 5-minute signals and near-dated contracts

Scalping here means holding for minutes up to about an hour on 5-minute signals. Liquid ETFs such as SPY and QQQ suit it because they list expirations for every trading day, so you can pick a contract that expires today or within a few days. Same-day contracts have their own guide, 0DTE options, and the full playbook is in our options scalping strategy.

At this speed, near-dated at-the-money options react sharply to small moves, and their time value melts fast, fastest on the last day. Spreads matter more because the planned move is small. Many scalpers stay near the money, where delta is higher and spreads are often tighter, instead of buying cheap far out-of-the-money contracts that need an extra fast move.

  • Signal: the 5-minute chart of the underlying, with the higher timeframes in agreement.
  • Contract: expiring today to a few days out, at or slightly in the money.
  • Time stop: short, for example 30 to 60 minutes.
  • Session: the regular session runs 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, which is 4:30 to 11:00 p.m. in Riyadh until November 1, 2026, then 5:30 p.m. to midnight. The first minutes after the open and the midday lull are where many scalps go wrong.

Swing version: 1-hour signals, higher timeframes and 30 to 60 days

Swing trading here means holding for days to weeks, using 1-hour signals with the higher timeframes setting the direction. Because the move takes longer, the expiration sits further out: many swing traders look at 30 to 60 days, so daily decay is slower and one slow week does not wreck the trade. Our guide to swing trading options covers the method in full.

Holding overnight adds risks a scalp avoids. The underlying can gap past your stop at the open, earnings may land inside your expiration, and implied volatility can rise or fall while you hold. Check the earnings date before you enter, and size as if the whole premium can be lost, because it can.

  • Signal: the 1-hour chart, with the daily trend in agreement.
  • Contract: 30 to 60 days to expiration, with a strike whose break-even sits inside the target.
  • Time stop: in sessions, roughly as many as the target usually takes, plus a buffer.

What a chart signal can't see: IV, earnings and spreads

A signal on the underlying knows nothing about the contract you pick. Before you buy, check what the chart cannot:

  • Implied volatility: high IV makes every strike expensive, and if IV falls while you hold, the option can lose value even when the underlying moves your way. Compare it with its own recent range. See implied volatility.
  • Earnings and events: implied volatility often drops sharply after an earnings report, the so-called IV crush. Turn on earnings icons in TradingView, and check the economic calendar for CPI, jobs and Fed days.
  • Spread: measure it as a percent of the premium. A $0.10 spread on a $1.00 option means you lose 10% on an immediate round trip before anything happens.
  • Volume and open interest: thin strikes fill badly, especially when you need to get out fast.
  • Live quotes: confirm the bid and ask in your broker before sending the order, since option prices move fast and data on any screen can lag.

How to use alerts so you don't watch the chart all day

You do not need to stare at the chart waiting for a setup. Set an alert on the indicator with the trigger Once per bar close, so you only hear about signals on closed candles. With UpTickFlow, one alert carries the direction, entry, stop and target, which is everything the options plan above starts from. At the time of writing, indicator alerts need a paid TradingView plan; the indicator itself works on a free account.

Once you are in, set two price alerts on the underlying, one at the stop and one at the target, so you know the moment to close the option. Our guide to TradingView alerts walks through the settings, including notifications on your phone.

Signal tools vs options recommendations: what is the difference?

An options recommendation service, often sold as a channel or alert group, tells you which contract to buy: ticker, strike, expiration and price. A signal tool shows levels on a chart, and you decide whether to trade, which contract and how many. The decision, and the responsibility, stay with you.

That difference matters in practice. A posted contract may already have moved by the time you read it, its spread may be wide, and its size has nothing to do with your account. Nobody can promise results in options. If a service talks about returns as a sure thing or only shows its winners, walk away.

UpTickFlow is a signal tool, not a recommendation service: it gives the setup and the levels on the underlying, and every choice about the contract is yours. It costs $19 every 30 days via Whop, you can cancel anytime, and support is in English and Arabic. Details are on the pricing page. Nothing in this guide is financial advice.

Worked example: one SPY signal, a losing and a winning version (hypothetical)

All prices are made up and rounded to show the mechanics. They are not a forecast and ignore commissions. On a Monday at 10:40 a.m. ET (5:40 p.m. Riyadh; add an hour from November 1), a long signal prints on the 5-minute SPY chart after the candle closes: entry $650.20, stop $649.40 (80 cents below), target $651.80 ($1.60 above).

The plan: a call, because the signal is long. Expiration: Wednesday, two trading days out, plenty for a move that should take under an hour. Strike: $650, just in the money, delta about 0.52, quoted $4.08 bid and $4.12 ask; you buy with a limit at $4.10. Its break-even at expiration is $654.10, above the target, which is acceptable only because you plan to sell within the hour: at the stop, at the target, or at 11:30 a.m. ET if neither has hit. Size: your rule caps premium at risk at $1,000 a trade, so 2 contracts, $820. At the stop you expect to lose about $0.45 per share, roughly $90 for both.

  • Losing version: at 10:55 a.m. ET (5:55 p.m. Riyadh) SPY trades down to $649.40. The stop on the underlying is hit, so you sell both calls at about $3.65: −$0.45 × 100 × 2 = −$90, close to plan. Had you held on hoping, and SPY closed Wednesday below $650, both calls would have expired worthless: −$820.
  • Winning version: SPY holds, and at 11:25 a.m. ET (6:25 p.m. Riyadh) it touches $651.80. You sell both calls at about $4.88: +$0.78 × 100 × 2 = +$156. The underlying moved twice its risk, but the option made about 1.7 times its loss, because the spread and decay took a share.
  • Flat version: SPY drifts near $650.30 until 11:30 a.m. ET (6:30 p.m. Riyadh). The time stop says close, and you sell at about $4.03: −$0.07 × 100 × 2 = −$14, lost to decay and the spread.
  • The put mirror: on a short signal at the same levels flipped, the plan would use the $650 put, with the same exits on the underlying.

Turn your phone sideways to read the drawing. Tap to close.

A hand-drawn ladder for the worked SPY example, two $650 calls bought at $4.10 ($820): at the $651.80 target the call is about $4.88, +$156; flat at $650.30 until 11:30 it is about $4.03, −$14; at the $649.40 stop it is about $3.65, −$90. Below: held, with SPY below $650 at Wednesday’s close, both calls expire worthless, −$820.