Do you have an options position that you've been rolling or adjusting but can't get ahold of what your total credit received was? Or, are you not sure the position you closed after all of your adjustments was still profitable or not? Well, kiss that spreadsheet you’ve been using to track your position goodbye and say hello to Order Chains.
Sections
- What are Order Chains?
- Where are Order Chains Located?
- How do I use Order Chains?
- Order Chains Layout Guide
- Positions tab: ‘Group By’ Order Chains
- Example of Order Chains in Action
What are Order Chains?
Keeps tracks of your positions from open to close
Order Chains will track the progress of your equity or ETF options positions from when you initially open them, make any adjustments to them such as a roll, to when you close it. Whenever you adjust an option position, Order Chains will automatically group the trades, keep track of the average trade price and P/L from when you initially opened it to when you finally close it.
Order Chains will only track equity/ETF options positions and cash-settled index options positions.Also, the progress of any options position(s) transferred to tastytrade via ACAT will not populate in Order Chains. Order Chains will only track your progress while trading at tastytrade.
Where are Order Chains Located?
Desktop Platform
Order Chains is in the Chains tab inside the right-hand sidebar on the desktop platform. To learn how to access the right-hand sidebar, please click here. During this initial release, Order Chains will only be available on the desktop trading platform.
Location of the Order Chains tab in the right-hand sidebar
Web Browser Platform
(coming soon)
Mobile Platform
Users can access a symbol's order chains window on the mobile app via the positions tab and symbol quote details. Tap on the position or symbol you wish to view and then tap on the Order Chains button.
Viewing Order Chains on IOS
How do I use Order Chains?
To track your options position journey, either click on or enter a symbol in the active symbol field (yellow arrow). If you have an open position or traded options in that stock or ETF, then your options positions' progress will populate in the Order Chains sidebar tab window below.
If you have multiple trading accounts and happen to trade the same underlying across them, then we suggest that you filter your account view by highlighting a single account in the Accounts pane. That way, you can isolate the displayed positions in Order Chains. Otherwise, Order Chains will display all orders placed in that underlying symbol together and separate them by account icon. To learn more about filtering your view by account, please click here.
Example of a platform with multiple accounts listed and filtering by selecting/highlighting
Order Chain profit and loss displayed on rolling order ticket
When setting up a rolling order, click the Max Prof or Max Loss header in the order ticket to show you the P/L values calculated for the entire order chain. When you are viewing the order chain calculation small indicators will appear next to Max Prof and Max Loss.
Example of Order Chain P/L values displayed when rolling an order
Order Chains Layout Guide
Each option strategy is separated by a blue line and lists the option strategy traded. In the example below, there are three separate options strategies displayed for AAPL (orange boxes). Additionally, you can view positions that you have filled, adjusted, or closed in the past 30 or 60 days (yellow box).
Order Chains displaying three separate options positions and location of the day filter
Order Chain Filters
To further customize your Order Chain display (yellow box), you can filter your Order Chains view by selecting or deselecting positions that resulted in a gain or loss (realized and unrealized), as well as have the option to filter for open or closed positions. The number of chains displayed will also list based on your filter selection.
Furthermore, based on the filters selected, you can see how many of the trades listed below resulted in a gain (realized and unrealized) and are closed. The filter color corresponds to the colored number. The example below illustrates two AAPL options positions that resulted in a gain, and out of the three positions displayed, one is closed (orange box).
Location of Order Chain filters and count
Filter Icon Key
When viewing positions in Order Chains, you may notice a different icon displayed along with each separated position. Below is a key to help you decipher amongst the icons you may run across when using Order Chains.
Open position
Closed position
Realized gain
Unrealized gain
Realized loss
Unrealized loss
Order Chains Column Definitions
Displayed numbers are based on the filters applied and the positions listed in Order Chains. The numbers above column labels are the totals (yellow box), and the numbers below are subtotals of each position (orange box).
Any column not immediately displayed will list on an overflow page (green box).
- Total P/L will list the current P/L of an open position + realized P/L (fixed column)
- The calculation for open positions: Average Trade Price - Mark
- For closed or adjusted positions it will list the figure from the Realized P/L column.
- Avg Trade Price: Lists the average trade price on a per quantity basis (static).
- Mark: Current mark of the position. The mark is generally based on the mid-price.
- Cost Basis: Total gross credit received or debit paid (static)
- Average Trade Price X Quantity X 100
- Does not include commissions and fees
- Net Liq: The total net liquidation value of each open position based on the mark multiplied by quantity.
- The calculation for Net Liq: Mark X Quantity X 100
- Negative net liq: what you need to pay to close the position
- Positive net liq: what you will collect when you close the position
- Does not include commissions and fees
- Realized P/L: Gross P/L of closed positions, including rolled positions/adjustments, which realize a profit or loss.
- Fees: Total clearing and regulatory fees charged
- Duration: Number of days the position has been open.
Example of totals and subtotal for each position displayed
Viewing the Market Snapshot of a Chain
In the Order Chain tab, right-click on a segment and select View Market State Snapshot. In the new window you can see how the market conditions have changed throughout the history of your order chain.
Screenshot showing the Market State Snapshot popup in the Order Chains tab of the right-hand sidebar
Animated example of the Market State Snapshot window
Positions tab: ‘Group By’ Order Chains
View and sort between options strategies in the Positions tab
Thanks to Order Chains, the Positions tab now organizes and separates your options strategies when you group your positions by Order Chains. To group your positions by strategy, click the Group By dropdown (yellow box) and select Order Chains. Not only will grouping by Order Chain label the option strategy, but will also list the number of adjustments made (orange arrows). When an adjustment is made, the Order Chains label will update as well.
Location of the 'Group by' dropdown and examples of the Order Chain labels in the Positions tab
Close at a specific profit percentage
Set up a closing order at a percentage of max profit on a position you have rolled. Click on the Order Chains tab in the right-hand sidebar. Right-click on the open position and select the percentage you want for the closing order. Then click the blue circle to populate the Trade tab with the closing order.
Screenshot showing Close At Profit % selection in the Order Chains tab
Example of Order Chains in Action
We’ll use a TLT Iron Condor with adjustments
Now that we went over how Order Chains is laid out, let’s take a look at a real-life example of Order Chains in action! For this example, we’ll use a one-lot $3-wide TLT Iron Condor. Notice how Order Chains will keep track of each adjustment listed in the Activity tab by referring to the corresponding colored boxes in Order Chains.
#1) The iron condor was open for the Dec. 18 monthly expiration cycle where we collected a $1.03 credit.
#2) The put side of the iron condor was rolled up to form an iron fly and we collected another $0.65 credit.
#3) We decided to roll the entire iron fly from Dec 18. monthly-expiration cycle to the Jan. 15 monthly expiration cycle. To achieve the roll, we started by rolling the puts out and we collected another $0.07 credit.
#4) To complete the iron fly roll, we rolled the call side to the Jan. 15 monthly expiration cycle and collected another $0.15 credit.
#5) As a result of the adjustments, we now have an iron fly for the Jan. monthly expiration cycle, and rather than manually adding up the initial credit, along with the credits collected along with each adjustment, Order Chains will keep track by listing the total credit received in the Average Trade Price column and calculate the Total P/L against the current Mark (yellow box). Once the position is closed, order chains will calculate the overall P/L based on the total credit received against the debit paid to close.
