A trader (Kardec Trader) recounts a December 16 intraday options trade on Tesla (TSLA). He entered around 9:35am using ~26 put contracts (attempted larger fills), trading off overall-market weakness (SPY/QQQ overextended from prior low) and key Tesla levels near 980–983. He describes watching level-2 order flow and option-premium behavior (mentions premiums ~11–16 and specific ticks '935/936') to time a scalp; he exited most/all positions near a $16 premium, reporting a ~5R outcome: risk ≈ $2,600 and profit ≈ $13,484 (≈46% return). The video explains entry logic, stop placement, partial exits, and post-trade reflection on position sizing and missed larger-runner gains.
Questions this video answers
December 16 (trading day referenced in the video).
Around 9:35 AM (entry time stated verbally).
Entered with about 26 contracts; attempted to get filled for 30 (and references trying for ~40 on other size attempts).
Reported profit about $13,484; risked about $2,600 for a 5R outcome (≈46% return).
Mentioned option premiums roughly from $11 to $16 and exiting around $16; specific quoted ticks include '935'/'936' in the discussion.
Chapters
What's going on guys? So in this video I'm going to break down my trading day today which is December 16th. I day traded Tesla, I got in Tesla puts made about 13, 484 for the day and just kind of wanted to dive in and break that down. So with that being said, let's go right into the charts. I'm going to just make this chart a little bit bigger, go where my entries go over my exits and kind of take a look at everything going on. So this is today's price action. Obviously we see what happened today, a huge move down. But my main play on Tesla was on the open. So if you go in my entries and exit, I got in around 9:35am, got in with about 26 contracts, try to get filled for 30. Didn't work. So this is where my entry was. So I want to dive into that and why I took the entry right here. So first and foremost when I'm trading these big names I am looking at the, the overall market such as Spy QQQ just to understand what are the indexes doing. So one thing I saw today was we were extremely overextended from yesterday's low which was 460 on spy made a move into 474 which is about a 14 point move towards the upside. Now there are days when you know, when you see this much of an overextended move, that move has a hard time following through. Now if it does it follow through I would obviously want to see us break out of pre market highs or I'd want to at least see us hold yesterday's levels. So obviously on the, on the open you guys can see we moved about two, three points down. That's already, that was already a red flag to showcase that we might have a weak market or we might have a flat market. The probability of us seeing a strong market went down. That was number one, right? Just seeing a weak overall market. Besides seeing a weak overall market. Looking at Tesla I had certain key levels I was focused on. My key levels on Tesla going into today was around the whole 980, 982 range. Now obviously once I have the 980 level arranged, that's my main level to watch. I'm not going to be heavily focused and say you know what, I need the 980 to break and that's where my trade will be. 980 is where I'm watching. So right on the open what did I see? I start seeing a heavy acceleration on the downside on price action and we start going right into 983, 982, major level that I have been focusing on, right when we push, we get the first little bounce. So once that bounce started Kicking up from 983, I start looking to identify, is this a strong bounce. Now, once again, there are days where I may flip this and play this in a different direction, where I might play this as a potential bounce play and a continuation after seeing a morning sell off. So that's what I initially was kind of like, is that a possibility? But like I said, seeing the weak market already kind of created the idea that we could see a little push down or a weak or flat market. So that was. The probability of that bounce happening in my head was limited. But obviously, as traders, you want to keep an open mind. So once I see that push down and the first bounce happens, I want to start seeing if on this bounce we start seeing any sort of rejection. Maybe at the open level around 994, maybe before 994, we get some heavy acceleration on the downside. So. So what happened is right after this move up happened, we started seeing massive size on the ask. Once again, if you have level two open, you can see the bid in the ask side. I started seeing heavy selling pressure kick in. So in my head I was like, listen, this is how I'm going to play this. Play this trade right here. I'm going to look to get in, right, scalpel play. If this continues on the next candle, I will look to put a stop around 994, 996, get out there. And if it does not, right, and it continues, right. I'll get out. And once again, if it does not, I can flip my position. So a lot of times I like to try to get in before the move down happens because option premiums really start moving. Now if we take a look at option premiums, right? Where are we? Right here, we look at option premiums. Just take a look at what happened. This is 935, you go into 936, you start seeing a heavy, heavy, heavy push up at that level, right? So seeing that level is kind of giving me that idea that, okay, we're getting the rejection 935, right? So you have 935, we're getting that rejection. That rejection is giving me the confirmation as I'm seeing it on the tape. That is where I'm taking my position. Obviously, I didn't get filled the way I wanted to get filled on this trade. Take the trade. And on the first leg down, right? You guys can see on the first leg down on the stock. Look at it from the bottom here to the high here. It already made a 3, 4 point move up on the option premium, right? That move happens. I see another leg down, a new low of the day, right into 980, right? Which is at 937. And that's where I start looking. And I'm like, okay, I'm looking to possibly get out, right? That was my first level of like, okay, I want to get out. I want to start taking a position out. And then when I see the next continuation that didn't follow through around 938, I didn't see accelerated continuation movement. So I'm like, you know what? There might be a stallment going on here. We might see some consolidation. So instead of seeing consolidation, I want to take some size off. So I started taking. I took majority of my size off. Then I took the remaining off a few seconds later. Just because I did not want to hold through. I got out around 16 bucks. This trade was a 5R, meaning I risked about 2600, made about 13 grand, 46% return. Phenomenal trade. Now, something I want to talk about, and this happens with a lot of traders, too. I kind of traded this with the idea of scalping, right? Now, when I look back at this trade with about 26 contracts, try to get filled close to 40, right? That's where I kind of, you know, played it. Played it very tight, right? Option premiums were from 11 to 16, around that range based on my entry and exit option premiums throughout the day. If I held, if I just let two runners run. And once again, I'm not playing the what if game, but I'm just explaining something here. You know, that could have been a 60, 70, 80k play on half my position. Not even full, just on 15 contracts because of how big and massive this move was. Right? Now, I'm not saying for you guys to go for these big, big type of plays, but I'm trying to get to. Is when you have trades, you want to try to be consistent. If your game plan was to, let's say hypothetically, you know, make this play, which was mine. My thing was to get in here, play the deceleration on the downside. Because of us, me playing very close option premiums and seeing that volatility, it'll pay me 20, 30%. And that's what I was looking for. I was looking for about 20%. I got 40% out of the trade. I got a 5R I'm happ now I can't go back to this trade and say, I wish I held. I wish I did this. Because now we see the aftermath during that moment. Based on the execution, based on my trade, I'm happy with the overall result. So once again, just wanted to break this trade down. Hope you guys found it helpful. And, yeah, thank you for watching, guys.
