For SPX iron condors, how far out-of-the-money do you typically place the short strikes versus selling at-the-money? Does this change based on the prevailing VIX level?

At VixShield, we approach SPX iron condors exclusively through our 1DTE methodology as outlined in Russell Clark's SPX Mastery series. Our short strikes are never placed at-the-money. Instead, we rely on the Expected Daily Range (EDR) indicator combined with RSAi (Rapid Skew AI) to select short strikes that are typically 0.8 to 1.2 standard deviations out-of-the-money. This placement captures the optimal credit while staying outside the projected daily move of the S&P 500. For example, with SPX at 7138.80 and current VIX at 17.95, our EDR might project a daily range of approximately 0.95 percent to 1.15 percent. The short strikes are then positioned beyond this range, often resulting in short puts and calls that are 65 to 85 points away from the current SPX level depending on the chosen risk tier. We offer three credit targets: Conservative at 0.70, Balanced at 1.15, and Aggressive at 1.60. These correspond to different distances from at-the-money, with Conservative being the furthest OTM for an approximate 90 percent win rate. Selling at-the-money would expose the position to immediate delta and gamma risk with minimal theta advantage in a 1DTE setup, which is why we avoid it entirely. VIX levels do influence our strike selection and tier usage through our VIX Risk Scaling framework. When VIX is below 15, all three tiers are available and we can comfortably use more aggressive short strike placements closer to the EDR boundary. At the current VIX of 17.95, we limit ourselves to Conservative and Balanced tiers only, pushing short strikes further out-of-the-money to account for elevated volatility expectations. Above VIX 20 we pause new iron condor entries entirely and rely on our ALVH (Adaptive Layered VIX Hedge) which remains active across all three timeframes (short 30 DTE, medium 110 DTE, long 220 DTE VIX calls in a 4/4/2 ratio). Our Set and Forget approach means we define risk at entry with no stop losses, allowing the Theta Time Shift mechanism to handle any threatened positions by rolling forward to 1-7 DTE on EDR signals above 0.94 percent or VIX above 16, then rolling back on VWAP pullbacks. This temporal martingale has shown strong recovery characteristics in backtests without requiring additional capital. Position sizing remains conservative at a maximum of 10 percent of account balance per trade, and we execute in the 3:10 PM CST window to avoid PDT concerns. All trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. To implement these concepts with daily signals, ALVH management, and PickMyTrade auto-execution for the Conservative tier, we invite you to explore the full VixShield system and SPX Mastery resources at vixshield.com.