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Hi @Kogelet, welcome once more. Nothing to add to @Yowster, despite maybe that these charts are also useful to compare todays straddle/calendar premium to previous cycles (which is possible because you compare the premium in terms of/relative to the underlying's price). While a cheap relative value will not give you any guarantee that it will not drop further (see FDX recently, for example), it will give you a better overall picture and help determine useful limits for entry and exit. This thread will explain more details at length:

@KogeletFor straddle RV, its the price of the ATM straddle divided by the stock price (its also called the implied move when you are really close to earnings day). RV is a great technical measurement for our trades because it encompasses both IV increases and theta decline. When looking at pre-earnings straddles, all RV charts will decrease on average (there will be days when it goes up, but in general the average line always goes down). Its the downward slope that is important - things with a steeper slopes have little RV increases heading into earnings to offset the theta decay, and things with flatter slopes have IV increase that counteract a lot of the theta decay. For our hedged straddle trades, we like to see the short strangle credits offset the typical RV decay - that way if we don't have gamma gains on stock price movement, we usually see the short strangle credits cover the straddle decline (or many times the short strangle credits exceed the long straddle decline)

I do look at charts. But, I never use any indicators, because they can "suggest" a direction that you might want to see. Strictly looking at price, is looking at reality. I try not to predict the future, if I can help it. But, for example, if we are in a clear uptrend, or just broke out of a sideways pattern into a new direction, then I will center the Iron Butterfly above ,(or below) the market, depending which way the price is trending. Crude has been in a sideways range for awhile now, which has been good for selling delta neutral premium. But, I do unusual things. For example, I will center more of my I butterflies ATM, but have a few above, and below the market, which widens out my potential range of profitability. Crude has been especially good because you get a large up day, immediately followed by a large down day....all within the larger range. So, on a large up day, I might buy back some (profitable, for that day) short put spreads. Then on a reversal, put it back on. But, only on a small piece of it. You want to keep the base position pretty close to how you set it up...as long as it is behaving itself. But, a sideways market is one of the main criteria for a good candidate to sell delta neutral premium. So, I would'nt put on a position like that , in something that is in a clearly trending market, which most stocks have been for awhile now, as you know. That is why I like commodities, because there is enough stuff that is not all correllated the same way. I also found that going out further in time, and collecting a lot of premium, can give back great returns faster than you would think. Like the TLT trade that everyone has been doing. I'm looking out to June , where I can collect $4.20 , on the same $5.00 wide fly that everyone else is collecting $2.50 with 40 DTE. My risk is MUCH less, and if it pops out of the range, it allows much more time to recover back. with Jan or Feb, you are not collecting enough premium, and if it does pop out of the range, you 1- do not have enough premium to protect yourself and 2- do not have enough time for it to return to some sort of mean reversion. Try doing strategies that you have already been doing (premium collection strategies), but go much further out in time. You might be surprised how quickly they lose value. while giving you more protection.