Pick the share of your premium you will accept losing to time decay alone. Get the exit-by time minute by minute, in ET with CT and the 24 hour clock beside it.
Not financial advice, and not encouragement. This is an educational model. It prices the option with Black-Scholes, holds implied volatility and the stock price constant, and ignores bid/ask spreads, skew, volatility spikes and fees, so real contracts will decay differently. A suggested exit time is a math result, not a signal to trade. 0DTE options can lose 100% of the premium within hours. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose completely, and speak with a licensed financial advisor before trading.
0DTE options are the fastest way to lose a premium. A contract that expires today (0DTE, zero days to expiration) can finish at zero, and time decay alone can take half of it before lunch. Only use money you can afford to lose completely.
Theta is the value an option loses just because time passes. On a 0DTE option that decay is not a straight line. It is slow in the morning and speeds up hard into the close, which is why the same contract can look fine at 10 AM and be nearly dead by 2 PM.
This timer assumes the stock goes nowhere and shows, minute by minute, how much of your premium is gone. Pick the loss you are willing to take from decay alone, and it tells you the time to be out by.
Times are Eastern (ET) with Central (CT) and the 24 hour ET clock beside them. The market closes at 4:00 PM ET (3:00 PM CT / 16:00).
Time for theta alone to take each share of the premium. Your own level is highlighted.
| Premium Lost | Time | Held | Position Left | Loss |
|---|
If nothing moves, this is what the position is worth at each checkpoint, and how far the stock would need to run to undo the decay.
| Time | Position Value | Lost So Far | Stock Move To Break Even |
|---|