btoptionbtoptionAn iron condor sells a put spread and a call spread at the same time — you profit if the stock goes nowhere much. High win rate, defined risk, and a loss profile where one bad month can undo ten good ones. That math is exactly why condors should be backtested, not eyeballed.
Short strike delta.
Selling the 16-delta strikes wins more often; selling the 30s collects more credit per trade. Neither is “correct” — they’re different businesses. Backtest both on the same window and compare the equity curves, not the win rates.
Wing width.
Narrow wings cap your max loss but eat your credit. Wide wings behave almost like a short strangle in a bad month. The width decides your worst drawdown, so pick it by looking at backtested drawdowns, not by feel.
Profit target and exit day.
The popular rules exist for a reason: take profit at 50% of the credit, get out around 21 DTE before gamma gets vicious. But “popular” isn’t “verified for your setup”. Run the same condor with and without these rules and the difference is usually stark.
What happens on a breach.
Hold to max loss, close at 2x credit, or roll the tested side — each rule changes the shape of the losing months. Since losing months dominate condor P&L, this is the single most valuable thing to test.
A condor has four legs, which means four bid-ask spreads on the way in and four on the way out. Backtests that fill at mid-price on modeled quotes flatter the strategy badly — on a trade that might net $80, slippage assumptions are the difference between profitable and not.
btoption simulates against real historical ORATS chain data, so the strikes, credits and exits in your backtest come from the market as it was. If the edge doesn't survive real quotes, better to learn that in a simulation.
Backtest it across a window that includes at least one volatile year. Then change one thing at a time. The monthly returns heatmap will tell you quickly whether you can stomach the bad months.
Backtest your condor before it backtests you.
Free, no account. Full results — equity curve, win rate, drawdown, every trade — in about a minute.
Run the backtest →Prefer undefined risk? The same rules apply to strangles. New here? Start with the options backtesting guide.