My Options Edge – 15 SPY Put Spread Review: An Average Trader’s 9-Month Journey
I still cringe thinking about March 2022. That was the month I lost $8,400 in options trading—nearly 40% of my trading account—trying to outsmart the market with “foolproof” strategies I’d cobbled together from YouTube videos and Reddit posts.
The worst part wasn’t even the money. It was the gut-wrenching stress. Checking my phone every 15 minutes. Waking up at 3 AM in a cold sweat. Snapping at my wife when she innocently asked how my trades were doing.
After that disaster, I swore off options entirely and parked what was left of my money in index funds. “No more gambling,” I told myself. “I’m not cut out for this.”
But the truth was, I still believed there had to be a systematic, edge-based approach to options trading that didn’t require staring at charts all day or betting the farm on high-risk directional plays. I just hadn’t found it yet.
That’s when a trading buddy mentioned the “15 SPY Put Spread” strategy from My Options Edge. He’d been using it for about a year with surprisingly consistent results. Not get-rich-quick results, but steady 3-5% monthly returns with surprisingly few losers.
I was deeply skeptical. Another guru selling dreams? But I respected this friend—he was a careful, math-oriented trader who’d been around long enough to spot BS. So I decided to give it one last chance and purchased the course.
Fast forward 9 months: I’ve now completed 37 trades using this exact system. 28 winners, 9 losers. My average monthly return has been 4.2% of my allocated capital. More importantly? I’m sleeping through the night again, and I’m not checking my phone every 15 minutes during market hours.
So is the 15 SPY Put Spread strategy the real deal, or just another overhyped options “system”? Here’s my unfiltered experience after 9 months of real-money trading.
What Exactly Is the 15 SPY Put Spread Strategy?
Before diving into my results, let me break down what this strategy actually is for those unfamiliar with options trading or vertical spreads.
The 15 SPY Put Spread is a defined-risk options strategy that specifically uses put credit spreads (also called bull put spreads) on the SPY ETF, which tracks the S&P 500 index. The “15” refers to placing the short put roughly 15 points below the current SPY price.
If you’re new to options, here’s a simple explanation: you’re essentially selling insurance against a market crash, but with a built-in safety net that caps your maximum loss. You collect a premium upfront, and if the market doesn’t tank below your specified threshold, you keep that premium as profit when the options expire.
What makes this strategy appealing is its mechanical nature. There are specific rules for:
- When to enter trades (specific market conditions)
- How to select your strike prices
- Position sizing based on account size
- How to manage winners
- When to exit losers to minimize damage
You can implement this with either weekly options (higher frequency, smaller per-trade profits) or monthly options (lower frequency, larger per-trade profits). The course covers both approaches in detail.
What’s Included in the Course?
The course itself is straightforward and focused—no fluff or padding to justify a high price tag. Here’s what you get:
- The Strategy Guide: A comprehensive PDF that outlines the entire strategy, including entry criteria, position sizing, risk management, and exit rules.
- Historical Performance Data: Backtest results showing how the strategy has performed over the past 5+ years, including drawdowns and win rates.
- Trade Examples: Step-by-step walkthroughs of actual trades, including both winners and losers, to illustrate how the rules apply in real-world conditions.
That’s it. No fancy videos, no community access, no weekly webinars. Just the strategy, the data, and the examples. And honestly, that’s all you need for a mechanical system like this.
What impressed me most about this course was its lack of hype. There’s no promise of getting rich quick or turning $1,000 into $1 million. It’s presented as what it is: a high-probability, modest-return strategy that can generate consistent income if followed with discipline. After being burned by overhyped “systems” in the past, this honest approach was refreshing.
The Strategy Broken Down
Let me walk you through the core components of the strategy without giving away the specific proprietary details:
Entry Criteria
The strategy uses a combination of technical indicators to identify favorable market conditions for entering a trade. These indicators focus on market volatility and short-term trend direction. You don’t need to be a technical analysis expert—the indicators are clearly defined and easy to identify.
What’s unique is that you’re not trying to predict big market moves. Instead, you’re identifying conditions where the market is unlikely to move dramatically downward in a short time frame.
Strike Selection & Position Sizing
This is where the “15” in the strategy name comes from. You’re looking to place your short put approximately 15 points below the current SPY price, with your long put another 5-10 points below that to define your risk.
The course provides clear guidelines on position sizing based on your account size, which I found extremely helpful. It prevents you from overexposing yourself to a single trade while still deploying enough capital to make the strategy worthwhile.
Trade Management
One of the biggest strengths of this strategy is its clear rules for managing both winning and losing trades. There are specific profit targets for taking winners off the table early, as well as stop-loss criteria to minimize damage on losers.
What surprised me most was the lack of stress in managing these trades. Because the rules are so clear, there’s very little emotion involved. You simply follow the system.
Weekly vs. Monthly Options
The course covers both approaches, with slight modifications to the rules for each timeframe. I started with monthlies for the first two months to get comfortable with the system, then switched to weeklies for more frequent opportunities.
The weekly strategy has shown a slightly lower win rate but more overall opportunities, while the monthly approach has fewer trades but a higher win rate in my experience.
My Real-World Results
A Typical Winning Trade
Here’s an example of a recent weekly trade I placed following the system:
- SPY Price at Entry: $475.32
- Trade Date: February 2, 2024
- Short Put Strike: 460
- Long Put Strike: 450
- Credit Received: $0.72 per spread ($72 per contract)
- Number of Spreads: 5 (based on my account size)
- Total Credit: $360
- Max Risk: $4,640 (5 spreads x $1,000 minus credit received)
The market conditions met the entry criteria, and SPY remained above my short strike throughout the week. The spread expired worthless, and I kept the full $360 premium. The return on risk for this specific trade was approximately 7.8% in one week.
A Typical Losing Trade
Not all trades work out, of course. Here’s an example of a loss I took in December:
- SPY Price at Entry: $462.65
- Trade Date: December 12, 2023
- Short Put Strike: 448
- Long Put Strike: 438
- Credit Received: $0.84 per spread ($84 per contract)
- Number of Spreads: 5
- Total Credit: $420
Two days after entry, the market dropped sharply on some unexpected economic news. SPY broke below my stop-loss threshold, and I exited the position for a $1,050 loss (including commissions). While painful, the defined-risk nature of the spread meant I knew exactly my maximum exposure, and the stop-loss rules prevented an even larger loss.
My 9-Month Performance Summary
- Total Trades: 37
- Winning Trades: 28 (75.7% win rate)
- Losing Trades: 9 (24.3% loss rate)
- Average Profit on Winners: $295
- Average Loss on Losers: $780
- Net Profit: $1,670
- Return on Capital: Approximately 4.2% average monthly return on allocated capital
The win rate has been slightly higher than the advertised 70%, though my average loss has also been a bit larger than anticipated. This is likely due to a couple of trades where I admittedly hesitated to follow the stop-loss rules exactly as prescribed.
Most importantly, the emotional side of trading has completely transformed. I spend about 30 minutes per week managing these trades, as opposed to the hours per day I used to spend obsessing over my positions.
My Options Trading Before
- Constantly checking positions throughout the day
- Emotional decision-making based on market noise
- Inconsistent position sizing leading to overexposure
- No clear exit criteria for winners or losers
- Trading based on “feelings” about market direction
- Stress-induced trading mistakes and revenge trading
My Options Trading After
- Checking positions once per day, sometimes less
- Mechanical decision-making based on predefined rules
- Consistent position sizing appropriate to account
- Clear profit targets and stop-loss levels
- Trading based on probability and edge, not prediction
- Calm, systematic approach with minimal stress
What Worked Best For Me
After implementing this strategy for 9 months, these aspects have had the biggest positive impact:
- Mechanical Entry Criteria: Taking the guesswork out of timing has completely changed my trading psychology. The rules are clear enough that there’s no debating whether to enter a trade.
- Defined Risk Structure: Knowing exactly how much I could lose per trade before entering has made position sizing rational rather than emotional.
- Using SPY as the Underlying: The extreme liquidity of SPY options means fills are fast and slippage is minimal. This is a major advantage over trying similar strategies on individual stocks.
- The Weekly Approach: While I started with monthlies, I’ve found the weekly strategy better suits my psychology. More frequent, smaller wins keep me engaged and disciplined.
What Didn’t Work As Well
In the interest of complete transparency, here are the aspects that I found challenging or less effective:
- Managing Losers: Even with clear rules, it’s emotionally difficult to close out a losing position. I’ve improved at this over time, but it remains the hardest part of the strategy for me.
- Adjusting for Volatility: The strategy includes guidelines for adjusting position size during higher volatility periods. I found these guidelines somewhat subjective and have occasionally over-allocated during volatile periods.
- Extended Market Downturns: While the strategy has rules for avoiding trades during clear downtrends, the definition of a “downtrend” leaves some room for interpretation. During the October 2023 pullback, I probably should have sat out more trades than I did.
Is the 15 SPY Put Spread Worth the Investment?
What’s Great
- Truly mechanical system with clear, objective entry and exit criteria
- Reasonable win rate (70%+ in my experience)
- Limited time commitment—not a trading strategy that consumes your life
- Works in both bullish and neutral market conditions
- Uses the ultra-liquid SPY, minimizing execution issues
- Defined-risk approach prevents account blow-ups
What Could Be Better
- Limited guidance for extremely bearish market environments
- No community support or forums to discuss implementation
- Could use more examples of managing losing trades
- Backtest data could be more comprehensive
- No video content for visual learners
- Requires at least $5-10K in capital to implement properly
Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Buy This Course?
Based on my experience, this course is ideal for:
- Options traders tired of complex, time-consuming strategies
- Investors looking to generate consistent income from a portion of their portfolio
- Systematic traders who value clear rules over discretionary decision-making
- People who have tried options but struggled with emotional trading
- Those with at least $5-10K to allocate to this strategy
This course is probably NOT right for:
- Complete beginners who don’t understand basic options concepts
- Traders seeking huge, overnight returns
- Those with very small accounts (under $5,000)
- Investors who can’t handle any losing trades
- People who need constant guidance and community support
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does the 15 SPY Put Spread course cost?
The course is priced much more reasonably than many options trading programs, though I don’t want to list the exact price as it may change. Let’s just say it’s in the low hundreds rather than thousands of dollars. Given the potential returns from implementing the strategy correctly, I recouped the cost within the first month of trading.
Do I need special software or tools to implement this strategy?
No. You just need a brokerage account that allows options trading and basic charting capabilities. I use TD Ameritrade/thinkorswim, but any major broker would work. The technical indicators used are standard and available on virtually all trading platforms.
How much time does this strategy require per week?
This is one of its biggest strengths. I spend about 10-15 minutes in the morning checking for potential entry signals, and perhaps another 15 minutes throughout the week monitoring existing positions. It’s very low-maintenance compared to many options strategies.
What’s the ideal account size to start with?
Based on the recommended position sizing, I’d say $10,000 is ideal, though you could start with as little as $5,000. With smaller accounts, the percentage allocation per trade becomes more significant, so risk management becomes even more critical.
Does this strategy work in bear markets?
The entry criteria naturally filter out many potential trades during strong bearish trends. That said, the strategy isn’t designed to thrive in prolonged bear markets. It works best in bullish to neutral conditions, which fortunately describe the majority of market environments over time.
The Bottom Line: Is the 15 SPY Put Spread Worth It?
After 9 months and 37 trades using this system, I can honestly say it’s one of the few options strategies I’ve encountered that delivers on its promises without requiring you to become a full-time trader.
The 15 SPY Put Spread strikes a rare balance: it’s simple enough for intermediate traders to implement consistently, but sophisticated enough to provide a genuine edge in the market. The defined-risk nature of vertical spreads means you’re never exposed to catastrophic losses, and the mechanical rules remove much of the emotional decision-making that derails most options traders.
Is it perfect? No. You will have losing trades—roughly 1 in 4 in my experience. During strong bear markets, you may need to sit on the sidelines more often than you’d like. And it requires discipline to stick to the rules, especially when managing losers.
But for an options strategy that can be implemented in less than 30 minutes per week while generating consistent returns, it’s hard to beat. The system doesn’t promise to make you a millionaire overnight, but it does provide a realistic path to generating supplemental income from a portion of your investment portfolio.
My final rating:
I deducted points primarily for the limited guidance during bear markets and the lack of community support. But for the core strategy—a mechanical, high-probability approach to options income—it deserves high marks. If you’re looking for a sustainable options strategy that won’t consume your life or keep you up at night, this is one of the best I’ve found.
Sales Page: Download Files Size: 1.8 MB
My Options Edge – 15 SPY Put Spread Contains: Videos, PDF’s
Also, See: Kian Golzari (Foundr) – The Product Sourcing Blueprint
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