Welcome To Cestrian Options.
DISCLAIMER: This note is intended for US recipients only and, in particular, is not directed at, nor intended to be relied upon by any UK recipients. Any information or analysis in this note is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Nothing in this note is intended to be investment advice and nor should it be relied upon to make investment decisions. Read our full disclaimer, here.
Changing Of The Guard
Our Jay’s Options service has delivered superb results since inception, based on a combination of risk-controlled options trades and some single-stock daytrading. Huge credit to the eponymous Jay Urbain for achieving this at the same time as developing the SignalFlow family of algo services - the growing demand for which means that Jay will from 1 July be putting all his time into further development of the SignalFlow algos.
I am delighted to see that Tony Pronk, a longtime respected contributor to the Jay’s Options service, is now stepping up to run it. The imaginatively titled new Cestrian Options service, the name reflecting Tony’s preference to let his trading do the talking rather than seek the limelight, begins in earnest on 1 July, although Tony has been posting trade ideas for some time already.
If you’re a member of the Jay’s Options service, do nothing, your membership will continue. If you want to join the new Cestrian Options service, read on, I’ll walk you through our focus.
We start selling the new service on 1 July. If you want to pre-register, or if you have any questions at all, you can reach me personally at alex.king@cestriancapital.com or you can use our website contact form.
Alex King, CEO, Cestrian Capital Research, Inc - 29 June 2026
Cestrian Options
What This Service Provides
● A manageable number of trades. 3-5 trade ideas weekly with an aim to collect at least 5% on risk per trade. You will get a higher %age if calculated on credit or debit - some options services do this to boost their numbers - but the honest metric is on risk.
● A calm environment. We prefer longer days to expiration (DTE) trades, because these areless sensitive to short term volatility and don't require your constant attention. The service is designed for members who want to check in with the market once per day, rather than requiring full-time trading attention.
● The rationale behind the trade idea in each case, including the entry debit or credit,profit and loss triggers so you know what to do upfront should you decide to follow any of the trade ideas.
● A commitment to simplicity., There are ways to go into an infinite complexity loop withoptions, we commit to not doing that but we will also not ignore the essentials.
We assume that each member has an understanding of basic options theory. We will provide links to educational resources as we go.
Why We Provide This Service
On the surface equity markets seem volatile and erratic but at least in the short to medium term they mostly move in relatively tight ranges. Well-designed option strategies allow traders to extract profits by positioning within, or directly outside those ranges. Options traders can cast a wide net andprovided they don't get too greedy, generate fairly consistent profits.
The strategies employed in the service don’t require users to be glued to the screen or panic whenvolatility ‘suddenly’ spikes. It's good to note that without uncertainty there would be no options, uncertainty is what creates the opportunity. The purpose of the service is to identify trade ideas that can extract some portion of risk controlled profit potential from a few core strategies, including but not limited to:
Win Rates And Risk Management
A quick word on win rate. We all want high win rates but it's a somewhat overrated metric. We want to be paid enough for the risk we take on. For example, selling very far out of the money (OTM) contracts will produce a very high win rate, it is also likely to fail, one loss can wipe out months or even years of profits. So a 60% win rate with positive expectancy (net profit) is far preferable to a 95% win rate with negative expectancy (net loss). We look for the best set ups with the best odds but some ideas will end up losing anyway. We assume that members of the service will size positions according to their own risk tolerance, should they follow any of the ideas we publish. Losses which are small relative to account size are, and should be, non-events. This is just like paying rent when you run a business, it is not ‘fun’ but owners accept it as the cost of doing business. As with any properly-run trading service, we take the time to consider our losing ideas to see what can be improved upon in the future.
A final note on this: we all have losing trades which ‘could have’ become winners if they had been left alone, and we all have winning trades which ‘might have’ become bigger winners after the profit is collected. There is no way to know this up front. Everyone is free to manage their own trades to theirown style and preference, of course. We manage risk and probabilities in the ideas we publish. We donot attempt to predict the future.
Situational Awareness
There are times to throttle up and times to take a step back and let things settle down. Being aware ofwhat is going on ‘out there’ is essential so we look at the primary trend, changes to the volatility regime, GEX structure, the venerable VIX, earnings and so on. We will respond to material changes when they happen. So we will not put on trade ideas just for the sake of doing so, there are times when it is best to let things settle down first, cash is a position, as they rightfully say.
Tony Pronk, for Cestrian Capital Research, Inc – 29 June 2026