Why I Don't Trade Weekly Options at the Market Open

As an options trader, I make my main weekly plays on Mondays. Around here we call it Money Monday, haha. As a trader, there’s a certain energy that comes with the Monday stock market opening bell. The market opens and you feel like you have to jump in right away before you miss a move. I get it, I used to do the same stuff. But I’m here to tell you that trying to get in early on a Monday, especially with my weekly options strategy, is one of the quickest ways to get burned.

The first thing to understand is that Monday morning price action is rarely clear or honest. It’s usually driven by emotion and greed, not logic, because you know I am all about that logic, haha. Over the weekend, retail traders stew on their positions, institutional traders prep for the week, and market makers set up shop to make sure they can profit from all the early noise. When that opening bell hits, the chaos begins, and for the first 30 to 60 minutes, you’re not looking at clean signals or solid trends. You’re watching reaction and speculation in real-time.

The Swings are Wild

You want to talk about volatility? There’s no better example than those first few candles on a Monday morning. Stocks gap up or down based on weekend sentiment or some news that hit Sunday night or is sentiment left over for the prior week, kind of like Elon's current little bitch feud with Trump keeping Tesla stock prices down. Pre-market volume gives people false confidence, and by the time the market opens, there’s often a rush of orders that distort the real direction. The result is a lot of wild swings that don’t actually tell you much about how the day, or even the week, is going to play out.

I’ve made the mistake before of thinking I had a good read on a setup right at the open. Maybe I saw a breakout forming, or a dip that looked ready to bounce. I’d enter a trade, thinking I was being proactive. Ten minutes later, I’m down big, watching the price go completely the opposite direction. That’s when I started realizing that these early moves weren’t trustworthy. They were just noise, and I was reacting to emotion, not structure.

Let the Market Settle Before You Make a Move

These days, I take a much more relaxed approach. I let the market do its thing for the first hour or so while I write this post and do some physical exercising. I watch how price reacts to key levels, where the volume is coming in, and whether the moves have any kind of follow through. If something pops up that looks strong but gets rejected right away, that tells me a lot more than trying to guess direction at the open. I am a dude that wants confirmation. I want to see if buyers or sellers are really in control. And I can’t get that info until the market calms down.

Waiting also gives me a better read on volatility for the week. If Monday starts off choppy and uncertain, it sets the tone for how I manage risk. If I see clear direction forming with clean follow-through, then I know it might be a more directional week. But if I jump in blind at the open, I don’t get any of that context. I’m just gambling. I will think I am getting a great price for a contract premium, but then a few minutes later the price moves and I realize I could have done way better with just a bit of patience.

Options Are a Game of Timing, Not Speed

When you’re trading weekly options, timing is everything. The contracts are short lived, and your entries need to be fairly precise. You don’t have the luxury of waiting days for a trade to go your way. That’s why getting in at the right moment matters so much. If you’re wrong at the open, you’ve got very little time to recover. The premium starts decaying right away, and even if the trade eventually goes your way, you might still lose money just from being early.

The idea that you have to act fast to be profitable is one of the biggest myths in options trading. You’re not in a race. You’re in a waiting game. The best trades I’ve made with weeklies weren’t the ones I rushed into. They were the ones I waited on. I let the market come to me instead of chasing it. And more often than not, those are the trades that paid the best. I have found that after lunch on Monday is when I get a bit clearer outlook on what the week is going to bring.

This Is Just for My Stock Strategy

To be clear, I’m talking specifically about how I manage my stock market trades within my family hedge fund. When I trade Bitcoin futures, that’s a whole different animal. The crypto markets don’t sleep, and they don’t wait for a Monday bell to move. My futures strategy for BTC is built around different timeframes and a whole different rhythm. I’ll write more about that in another post, because it deserves its own spotlight. But for now, just know that this Monday hesitation I’m talking about only applies to the way I handle weekly options in the stock market.

Final Thoughts

So if you’re like me and you play the weekly options game, do yourself a favor and take a breath on Monday morning, at least the first hour or two, wait till later on. Watch the action, take notes, and let things develop. Don’t feel the pressure to trade just because the market is open. There’s nothing wrong with sitting on your hands until you see something that actually makes sense. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches and probably a lot of money too.

Trading is a business of discipline and patience. And part of that discipline is knowing when not to trade. Monday mornings, for me, are a time to observe, not attack. The opportunities will still be there once the noise dies down after the first couple of hours. You just have to be ready when they show up!

Until next time...

Be cool, be real, and always abide with you my dudes!

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