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AI-Agent SPY Same-Day Bear Call Spread Strategy

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Summary

The document describes a two-agent bot that sells a same-day-expiring bear call spread on SPY. A research agent checks prices every 15 minutes and selects a short call near 0.20 delta plus a call five points higher. A trading agent opens one spread per day, with stated account risk of about 1%, then monitors it for early exit conditions: retaining half the credit, closing costs reaching twice the credit, or SPY rising above the short strike. It avoids opening a spread during the final 30 minutes of the session.

The reported backtest covers two days in January 2026 with Alpaca option prices and a $100,000 starting balance. Both sessions rallied toward the short strike, and the bot closed at its loss limit; the account finished at $99,826, a 0.2% loss. This is a brief losing sample, not evidence of expected performance, and the document explicitly cautions that a short backtest does not predict future returns. Same-day options move quickly, and checking every 15 minutes may leave material exposure between decisions; the authors recommend paper trading first.

Key ideas

  • The bot sells a daily SPY bear call spread using a short call near 0.20 delta and a call five points higher.
  • It checks the market every 15 minutes and uses preset profit and loss exit conditions.
  • The strategy limits new entries near the end of the trading day and describes risk of about 1% of the account.
  • Its example backtest spans only two losing sessions and cannot establish future performance.
  • The document flags rapid 0DTE price changes and recommends paper trading before live use.

Tags

OptionsEquitiesRisk managementBacktesting
Full text
# agents example 0dte options ai trading bot


0DTE Options AI Trading Bot
===========================

.. meta::
   :description: Two AI agents team up to trade SPY 0DTE options with bear call spreads that expire the same day. Free Python code you can backtest in LumiBot.

.. image:: ../docs/assets/ai-agent-workflows/0dte-options-ai-trading-bot.png
   :alt: Research agent checks SPY every 15 minutes, trading agent sells today's call spread, then the trade that expires the same day
   :width: 100%

This bot trades 0DTE options: options that expire the same day. It sells a bear call spread on SPY, the S&P 500 ETF, and keeps the premium if SPY stays below the short strike by the close. 0DTE is now the biggest part of the index options market: in August 2025 it was a record 62.4% of all SPX options trading (`Cboe <https://www.cboe.com/insights/posts/spx-0-dte-options-jump-to-record-62-share-in-august>`__).

How it works
------------

1. **Research agent** checks SPY and the calls that expire today every 15 minutes. It finds the call near 0.20 delta and the call 5 points higher, with their prices.
2. **Trading agent** sells that spread once a day, risking about 1% of the account.
3. The trading agent keeps watching and closes the spread early when you have kept half the credit, when closing costs twice the credit, or when SPY rises above the short strike. It never opens a new spread in the last 30 minutes of the day.

Change ``symbol`` to ``"SPX"`` to trade S&P 500 index options, if your broker offers them.

Run it on BotSpot
-----------------

Run this bot on `BotSpot <https://botspot.trade/marketplace?utm_source=documentation&utm_medium=docs&utm_campaign=lumibot_ai_examples&utm_content=agents_example_0dte_options_ai_trading_bot>`_ without installing anything. BotSpot runs LumiBot in the cloud, backtests it, and connects it to your broker.

Backtest tear sheet
-------------------

GPT-6 Luna, January 5 to 6, 2026, Alpaca option prices, $100,000 start. Each morning the bot sold a 2-contract SPY bear call spread that expired that day, for about $0.27 a share. Both days SPY rallied into the short strike, and the bot closed the spread early at its loss limit, near 2 to 3 times the credit because it checks every 15 minutes. It ended at $99,826 (-0.2%). A losing window, shown as it happened.

.. image:: ../docs/assets/ai-bot-backtests/0dte-options-ai-trading-bot.png
   :alt: Backtest tear sheet for the 0DTE Options AI Trading Bot
   :width: 100%
   :target: tearsheets/0dte-options-ai-trading-bot.html

`Open the full tear sheet <tearsheets/0dte-options-ai-trading-bot.html>`__. A short backtest shows the bot works as written. It is not a promise of future returns.

The code
--------

The whole bot is one short file. The prompts are plain English, and they are the strategy.

.. literalinclude:: ../lumibot/example_strategies/ai_0dte_options_trading_bot.py
   :language: python

Run it yourself
---------------

.. code-block:: bash

   pip install lumibot
   python -m lumibot.example_strategies.ai_0dte_options_trading_bot

Put these in your ``.env`` file: ``OPENAI_API_KEY``, and your broker keys (for example ``ALPACA_API_KEY``, ``ALPACA_API_SECRET``, and ``ALPACA_IS_PAPER=true`` for paper trading). With ``IS_BACKTESTING=false`` the bot trades. With ``IS_BACKTESTING=true`` it backtests instead; set ``BACKTESTING_START`` and ``BACKTESTING_END`` to pick the dates, and start with a week or two, because every AI call costs a little. Option and minute-bar backtests use Alpaca's free history, so paper Alpaca keys are enough.

Good to know
------------

* 0DTE options move very fast. Paper trade first.
* The bot checks every 15 minutes, so it makes a lot of AI calls per day.

See :doc:`agents_examples` for more AI trading bots and :doc:`strategy_run_modes` for backtest and live runs.

Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: GPL-3.0

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.