TSLA iron condor, priced on the real chain

Four legs, one idea: you are selling the market's estimate of how far TSLA can travel. The short strikes ($275 / $355) define the range you're renting out; the long wings ($270 / $360) cap what a violent move can cost you.

Both spreads cannot lose. TSLA finishes on one side of the market, so at most one vertical goes in the money — which is why max loss is the width of ONE spread minus the credit, $361, not double it. Max profit is the $139 credit, earned by doing nothing.

Breakevens land at $273.61 and $356.39. Outside that band the position loses; between it, it wins. That band is 26.6% wide relative to spot, against 46% implied vol over 27 days.

Return on risk is $139 against $361 — roughly 39% if it works. You need a high hit rate to justify that ratio, which is exactly what the 69% probability is telling you.

The risk shape is a plateau with two cliffs. Anywhere between $273.61 and $356.39 you make money; past the long wings you lose a fixed $361. Between short and long strike the P/L slides linearly — that is where most condors are actually managed, not at expiry.

The killer is a trend, not a spike. A slow grind through the short call over three weeks costs the same as a gap and gives you more chances to talk yourself out of closing.

Early assignment is an operational risk rather than a market one: it arrives on a weekend, converts a defined structure into a stock position, and requires cash you may have allocated elsewhere.

The credits look like a different asset class, and they are compensation, not edge. Tesla's realized vol has spent long stretches at or above its implied, which is the definition of a name where premium selling has no structural tailwind. Defined risk is not optional here: a naked short strangle on TSLA has produced account-ending weeks more than once.

TSLA's Aug 28 strikes are $5 apart near the money (1.61% of spot). On a ladder that wide, "pick the 0.30 delta strike" resolves to whichever rung happens to be closest — sometimes not close at all. 56k contracts of open interest on Aug 28 is workable around the money and thin in the wings — width costs more here than the ladder suggests. 36 strikes on that expiry — 49% of the board — carry prints that agree with their own implied volatility and hold up across the ladder, and those are the strikes priced here. Retail-deep at every strike and every weekly. Four-leg fills near mid are routine, even in the wings.

Skew is inverted: the 25-delta CALL implies 4.2% more vol than the put. That is the market pricing upside risk above downside risk — a squeeze, a takeover rumour, or a crowded short. Selling calls into an inverted skew pays better than usual and is riskier than usual for exactly the same reason. The term structure is flat inside 1.5% between the two captured expiries, so there is no calendar edge to harvest and no event visibly priced into one month over the other.

At 46% ATM implied vol, the Aug 28 options are pricing a one-standard-deviation move of $39.20 over 27 days — roughly −12.6% to +12.6%, or $272.01 to $350.41. A short-premium structure here is a bet that 12.6% over 27 days is more than TSLA will actually use. That is the thesis, stated honestly.

The mistake this name punishes hardest: Treating a 60% IV as 'rich'. On this name that is the middle of the range, and the wings price fairly for a reason.