CCS
CENTURY COMMUNITIES, INC.
stock NYSE

I noticed that about selling into the move. You really want to sell into the move right before it hits the reversal level, then let it reverse and drop in price to close it out. Rinse and repeat.
I started with a CCS about 830pt, then put on a PCS a bit latter. Bought back both for 95% profit before 11pt. With that risk off the table I put on another CCS, this time closer, and with better premium. Price went lower during my lunch and that one closed out for 95% profit also about 1230pt. I'd usually end it there, but noticed I could still get a decent credit at 7710-7715 CCS, even with a half hour left. I let that one expire out of the money. It was a good day!

I'm a 0DTE credit spread trader with a focus on SPX.
Positions traded today:
* 7735/7755 CCS
P/L: **+$215**
[SPX 5-min chart, August 18, 2026](https://preview.redd.it/y1vlu9s1w7kh1.png?width=1577&format=png&auto=webp&s=bee615024cc469211686351b0bb5eac8d17b4b0e)
***If my thesis is that SPX is range-bound, I don’t want to sell credit after price moves away from me — I want to sell into the pressure at the edges.***
Today’s gain also completely made back [yesterday’s loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/5XaTjuPBoQ). That’s why keeping losing days small matters so much — yesterday effectively cost me *one trading day*, and that’s using today as the comparison, which was actually a lower-profit day than most of my green days.
# Morning Thesis
SPX had gapped down roughly 45 points overnight. I came into the session cautiously bearish, but I wasn’t really expecting a clean trend. My expectation was more range/chop with relatively low IV, especially with the Fed minutes coming tomorrow. Yields and oil were also a major part of my morning read, so I thought elevated levels there could keep some pressure on SPX.
The open gave me nothing worth trading. Price was choppy and directionless, so I stayed out.
My original plan was either to leg into an iron condor (similar to [yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/b1QZffS9AL)) if the range developed or simply trade the CCS side if upside pressure gave me the location I wanted.
# My First Trade
Around 9:26 AM PT, SPX finally gave me the upside push I had been waiting for.
I sold a **5-lot 7735/7755 CCS at $.40**. SPX quickly rotated lower after the entry and the spread repriced to $.20. That gave me the opportunity to take **$100 profit** almost immediately.
This is also one of those situations where I think it’s okay to recognize when you got a little lucky. I didn’t enter expecting SPX to hand me a quick 50% move in the spread in less than 5 minutes. But it did.
***When a trade gives you a quick win, you take it.***
Did I know I would get another opportunity later? No. But that isn’t really the point. On a day where price action is unpredictable, I’d rather take the favorable repricing the market just handed me than turn a good trade into a negotiation.
# Selling Into the Pressure
Today was a semi-decent example — at least on the opening side — of how I approach rangey/choppy price action when I decide to participate.
Once I felt my thesis was playing out and SPX was staying inside a range, I wanted to sell the CCS **into upside pressure**, not after the pressure had already disappeared.
Think of it like visualizing the upper and lower pressure points of the range. If I want a call credit spread, I want SPX pushing toward the upper side when I enter. That generally gives me better premium and better location.
If I wait until SPX has already chopped back down to sell the exact same anchor, especially in a low-IV environment, I’m likely accepting less credit. Then if SPX simply rotates back toward the top of the range, I can immediately find myself defending a worse entry. So instead of chasing the move away from me, I **wait for price to come toward the area** I want to sell against.
# The Range Still Needs an Invalidation
The important part is that “range-bound” can’t become an excuse to hold forever. I need a clear point where my thesis is no longer valid. For me, that is often a 5-minute candle closing through the structure I’m leaning against, or a break, retest, and continuation that increases the probability SPX is transitioning from a range into a trend.
At that point, the original thesis has changed. I need to change with it.
# Protecting the Cushion
SPX eventually pushed higher again and gave me another entry into the same 7735/7755 CCS.
This time I built four contracts instead of five, filling two at $.30 and two at $.45. The market rotated lower shortly after again and I closed all four at $.15.
After those first two trades, my mindset changed. I had already built a decent cushion, so there was no reason to keep pressing size into mediocre price action.
From there, I reduced myself to 1-lot trades and only wanted another position if the market gave me a clear opportunity. SPX eventually produced one more upside push, so I sold one final **7735/7755 CCS at $.25**. Price stayed safely away from the spread and I let that contract expire worthless.
I never got enough downside pressure to justify opening the PCS side.
# Key Takeaway
The theme with SPX lately has been ***waiting***.
I didn’t oversize today. I waited for setups to match the thesis, sold into pressure instead of chasing price, and reduced size once I had built a cushion.
IV was slightly better today, which helped me get farther away while still collecting reasonable premium, but I still kept my sizing at roughly half-size or below. And when the market gave me unexpectedly quick wins, I took them.
You don’t need to know whether another opportunity is coming later.
***Trade the opportunity SPX is giving you now — not the opportunity you hope it gives you next.***

How comes the "normal" ccs gets funded in no time and this very relevant one is still struggling after 4 month of idling ? Is the CCS financing system that good, transparent, fair and efficient as it is understood to be ? Seems like money is not coming from many small guys like me but rather from very few big pockets that "own" the system and steer the narrative.....

I'm a 0DTE credit spread trader with a focus on SPX.
Positions traded today:
* 7715/7695 PCS
* 7730/7710 PCS
* 7740/7720 PCS
* 7780/7800 CCS
* 7795/7815 CCS
P/L: **-$190**
[SPX 5-min chart, August 17, 2026](https://preview.redd.it/uidsld82g2kh1.png?width=1541&format=png&auto=webp&s=111e1658e5045d7cc40bdf2e129be2c4627e66bb)
I broke a rule ***twice*** today. But the one I ***didn't*** break mattered more than either mistake.
**Risk management. That's the rule. That's the one that saved me.** [Aim small, miss small](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/W6UeEvYjS0).
# Morning Thesis
My morning read was slightly bullish, but I was more cautious than usual because of the Iran/oil/Hormuz headlines. There weren't many strong economic catalysts on the calendar, IV was extremely low — around 13% early (to 9% later on) — and my expectation was primarily for a range.
The plan was to let price develop and potentially scale into an iron condor only if the structure justified it. The important word there is **develop**.
SPX dropped hard relative to the available IV during the opening five minutes, chopped, and made a few additional pushes lower without developing into the clean trend I wanted.
And that's where I made mistake number one.
# My First Trade
Around 8:00 AM PT, I entered my **2-lot 7795/7815 CCS anchor for $.40 premium** without waiting for the confirmation I normally require. I had an extended range marked and should have waited for at least a full 5-minute candle close below it.
I didn't. I traded the break instead of the confirmation.
Then SPX moved back upward, briefly held above yesterday's low, and I made essentially the same mistake in the opposite direction. Rather than waiting for a clean close above the structure I was watching — or at minimum confirmation above yesterday's low — I opened the 7740/7720 PCS anchor at a 2-lot size as well.
So now I had managed to make two execution mistakes while trying to construct what was originally supposed to be a deliberate, scaled-in range trade.
Not ideal.
# The Part I Want People to Notice: Size
Look at the lot sizes. Nothing I entered today was larger than **1 or 2 lots at a time**. That's an important part of the story.
IV was extremely low, eventually falling toward roughly 9% later in the session, and price action wasn't particularly clean. When IV is compressed and you're entering despite not having your strongest setup, **that is not the environment to size up.**
Low IV can look harmless right until price accelerates.
Then IV can inflate rapidly — especially during a fast downside move — and the spread you sold cheaply can suddenly become much more expensive to close. The protection against that isn't predicting the move perfectly. It's ***sizing appropriately*** before the move happens.
# The Poker Hand
The easiest comparison I can make is Texas Hold'em poker *(I know I'm not the first to make this comparison)*.
Today the dealer handed me **4-6 offsuit**. You don't size 4-6 offsuit like pocket aces.
Honestly, you can make a very strong argument that the correct decision was simply to fold preflop and sit the day out entirely. Instead, against better judgment, I paid a small price to see the flop.
The flop came. It didn't improve my odds. If anything, the situation got worse. And this is where risk management saved me.
I didn't keep pouring chips into a bad hand simply because I had already paid to see the flop.
# Midday — Accepting the Loss
SPX eventually began making a much more meaningful and consistent push lower. My 7740/7720 PCS was still technically alive, but price had moved to roughly 15 points from the short strike and the spread was hovering around my 3× premium backstop.
Could it survive? Absolutely.
Was I willing to accept the risk required to find out? **No**.
A sudden downside acceleration combined with IV expansion could have changed the loss very quickly.
So I closed it.
At that point I accepted that the day was probably going to finish red. There was ***no mission to "get back to even."*** ***No revenge trade***. ***No sudden increase in size***. I only watched for small, qualified scalp opportunities that could reduce some of the damage without materially increasing my risk.
# And Of Course… The PCS Would Have Survived
This is the part that can mess with newer traders psychologically.
SPX eventually chopped around enough that my original PCS **would have finished fine.** That doesn't make my exit wrong. You cannot judge a risk-management decision using information that became available afterward.
At the moment I exited, my short strike was too close, downside momentum had strengthened, IV had room to inflate, and the potential downside of holding was no longer worth the remaining reward.
I wrote a recap recently about ["aim small, miss small"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/B0PysRdFI2). And there's some pretty funny timing here because literally yesterday I wrote about the importance of [losing well](https://www.reddit.com/u/klipsetrades/s/jxEoKdmx9X) **— and why turning a potentially larger loss into a smaller loss is still a successful decision**.
Apparently the market decided I needed a live demonstration one day later 😅
# Perspective
My loss today was about half a day's work compared with some of my recent lower-profit green sessions. That's completely manageable. And that's the point.
Bad hands happen.
Bad entries happen.
Days where your read doesn't develop happen.
The goal isn't to somehow eliminate all of them. The goal is to make sure one bad hand doesn't take a meaningful chunk of your stack with it.
# Key Takeaway
I made two mistakes today and paid for them. But I didn't make the mistake that turns small problems into large ones.
I didn't size aggressively in a low-IV, low-quality environment. I didn't revenge trade after taking the loss. I didn't hold a deteriorating position simply because hindsight might eventually prove that it could survive.
**Risk management doesn't just save you from the market. It saves you from yourself.**
Sometimes the dealer gives you pocket aces.
Today was 4-6 offsuit.
Know the difference — and size accordingly.

Writing this as a "journal/playbook" post is the right framework — the P/L number is almost secondary to the pattern data. The note about "don't be overconfident from the recent run" is exactly the kind of thing that only shows up when you're logging context alongside the trade.
What does your review process look like after the fact — do you go back and tag which setups (IC, PCS, CCS) had the cleanest execution vs. which were the overconfidence mistakes?
Doing customer discovery interviews with swing/options traders about trade review before building anything. DM open if you'd be up for a quick chat.

MAGIC Grants contracted [Trail of Bits](https://www.trailofbits.com/), a leading cybersecurity and research firm, to audit certain cryptography for Monero's forthcoming FCMP++ upgrade. This upgrade will substantially increase the privacy of Monero transactions.
> FCMP++ is [short for](https://www.getmonero.org/2024/04/27/fcmps.html) "Full Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability."
MAGIC Grants has assisted the Monero community with a number of security reviews, both for and outside of the Monero FCMP++ upgrade. Trail of Bits was selected for this project through a competitive bidding process.
The Trail of Bits audit was prepared by Joe Doyle under the direction of Jim Miller, Engineering Director, Application Security and Cryptography.
The review consisted of two engineer-weeks of effort. Doyle's efforts primarily involved reviewing incremental modifications to the Monero cryptography core libraries.
Doyle found that the changes made are focused and appear to be correct, though he suggested a larger test suite and better documentation. **The review produced six informational findings. Zero high, medium, and low-severity findings were discovered.**
Five of these findings have been resolved, and one of these has been partially resolved.
The partially resolved finding concerns fragile memory layout assumptions in a Rust FFI function. Compile-time static assertions have been added to safeguard the FFI interface, though Trail of Bits says that the interface itself remains fragile.
Further information on all six findings and their resolutions are available in the public audit report.
MAGIC Grants would like to thank Trail of Bits for their detailed review of this project, We would like to thank Justin Berman for their efforts in developing Monero and selecting the appropriate audit scope. Finally, we would like to thank the Monero community donors for funding this audit.
## [Read the Audit Report](https://github.com/trailofbits/publications/blob/master/reviews/2026-07-magicgrants-monerofcmp++crypto-securityreview.pdf)
This is related to the [FCMP++ Integration Audit CCS](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/fcmp++-integration-audit.html).
[Link to the original MAGIC Grants post](https://magicgrants.org/2026/08/17/Monero-FCMP-Cryptography-Implementation-ToB).

MAGIC Grants contracted [Trail of Bits](https://www.trailofbits.com/), a leading cybersecurity and research firm, to audit certain cryptography for Monero's forthcoming FCMP++ upgrade. This upgrade will substantially increase the privacy of Monero transactions.
> FCMP++ is [short for](https://www.getmonero.org/2024/04/27/fcmps.html) "Full Chain Membership Proofs + Spend Authorization + Linkability."
MAGIC Grants has assisted the Monero community with a number of security reviews, both for and outside of the Monero FCMP++ upgrade. Trail of Bits was selected for this project through a competitive bidding process.
The Trail of Bits audit was prepared by Joe Doyle under the direction of Jim Miller, Engineering Director, Application Security and Cryptography.
The review consisted of two engineer-weeks of effort. Doyle's efforts primarily involved reviewing incremental modifications to the Monero cryptography core libraries.
Doyle found that the changes made are focused and appear to be correct, though he suggested a larger test suite and better documentation. **The review produced six informational findings. Zero high, medium, and low-severity findings were discovered.**
Five of these findings have been resolved, and one of these has been partially resolved.
The partially resolved finding concerns fragile memory layout assumptions in a Rust FFI function. Compile-time static assertions have been added to safeguard the FFI interface, though Trail of Bits says that the interface itself remains fragile.
Further information on all six findings and their resolutions are available in the public audit report.
MAGIC Grants would like to thank Trail of Bits for their detailed review of this project, We would like to thank Justin Berman for their efforts in developing Monero and selecting the appropriate audit scope. Finally, we would like to thank the Monero community donors for funding this audit.
## [Read the Audit Report](https://github.com/trailofbits/publications/blob/master/reviews/2026-07-magicgrants-monerofcmp++crypto-securityreview.pdf)
This is related to the [FCMP++ Integration Audit CCS](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/fcmp++-integration-audit.html) proposal.