Trade Smart: InfoStation

This page contains information not necessarily specific to OO, but relevant for options trading in general.

390 Profession Order Rule

The 390 Professional Orders Rule classifies options traders as "Professional" based on their order volume. This requirement, imposed by U.S. options exchanges, ensures retail traders maintain order execution priority over high-volume traders.

Averaging 390 or more options orders (across all exchanges) per day during any calendar month triggers "Professional" classification for the following calendar quarter. All submitted orders count toward this threshold, including filled, cancelled, and rejected orders. Multi-leg spread strategies count as single orders.

Orders from traders classified as "Professional" are treated the same as broker-dealer orders for execution priority and fees. Additional information can be found here.

Note: The 390 threshold corresponds to the 390 minutes in a standard trading day (9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time), representing the theoretical maximum of one order per minute throughout the trading session.

Quantity 50 Orders on Schwab

Users have reported instances where Schwab (ToS) will manually fill orders over quantity 50. This may have an impact on automation, and users may wish to limit sizing below 50, or reach out to Schwab for clarification on their individual accounts settings for manual fills.

Assignable Tickers

Automating options trades with assignable tickers (i.e. non index options— examples being SPY, IWM, QQQ, Apple, Tesla) carries inherent complexity due to assignment risk. Brokers handle this differently. End of day trading/holding of these symbols can increase complexity and risk depending on the user's account size.

Execution Speed

The OO automation platform allows rapid order iterations. One second modifications (for entry or exit) may be too fast for some brokers, depending on the user's location and connections.