What is the VixShield Premium Gauge and how do I use it for trade selection?
VixShield Answer
The Premium Gauge is a proprietary VixShield indicator that displays the current available premium for the standard 1DTE SPX iron condor setup in real time. It answers the specific question: given current market conditions, how much credit can I collect today?
The Premium Gauge takes VIX level, term structure, skew, and time of day into account to produce a single normalized reading. High readings indicate conditions where premium is rich relative to historical norms — an excellent environment for iron condor selling. Low readings indicate compressed premium where risk/reward is less favorable.
Practical uses of the Premium Gauge:
Go/no-go decision: If the gauge is reading below a threshold (roughly $0.30 for a $5-wide SPX condor), skip the session. The premium does not justify the overnight risk.
Strike distance decision: In high-gauge environments, you can place strikes further out while maintaining premium targets. In moderate environments, strikes must come closer, and position sizing should reflect the tighter margin for error.
Integration with RSAi™: The Premium Gauge feeds directly into RSAi™ recommendations. Strikes that do not clear the premium threshold are excluded from RSAi™ output regardless of probability profile.
💬 Community Pulse
The question of whether to trade on any given day is one that many options traders never have a systematic answer for. They trade every day regardless of conditions. The Premium Gauge provides an objective, real-time filter. VixShield traders who follow it report passing on approximately 10–15% of sessions, which disproportionately includes the ones that would have been losses.
Put This Knowledge to Work
VixShield delivers professional iron condor signals every trading day, built on the methodology behind these answers.
Start Free Trial →