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Silver Soars! FOMO? Three Options Strategies to Ride the Move

The precious metals rally that began in 2024 has now reached a fever pitch. Silver in particular has turned into a volatility monster: its spot ETF—SLV—was up as much as +14% intraday yesterday, finished the day +5%, and at one point was down nearly 9% from the intraday high.

This wasn’t just a big move—it was arguably the largest single-day intraday range SLV has seen since inception, and the magnitude of the swing was comparable to many meme stocks.

Explosive upside and violent swings create trading opportunities—but they also trigger FOMO for anyone who missed the move. The bigger question is: with silver already at elevated levels, should investors still chase spot? If not, what options strategies can help you participate in this trend?

This article introduces THREE options strategies to help investors participate in the silver rally with less stress and more structure.

1) Intraday Options Trading

Right now, the implied volatility (IV) of SLV near-the-money options is extremely high:

– February expiry: ~100% IV

– March expiry: ~90% IV

– April expiry: ~83% IV

A common “rule of thumb” for translating IV into an expected daily move is: Every 16 points of IV ≈ 1% average daily move.

So if we assume SLV’s long-run average IV is around 80, that implies about 5% average daily movement. If we use the more realistic short-term IV range of 90–100, that implies daily moves closer to 6%.

And that’s just the day-to-day move—not even counting the intraday high-to-low swing, which can be even larger.

At this point, many readers can already see the logic: 5–6% daily volatility creates rich intraday trading opportunities. And with options, you can amplify those intraday opportunities.

Let’s use a simple example:

– Suppose SLV has a 6% intraday range on a given day.

– You don’t need to capture the full 6%. If you capture half of it, that’s 3%.

– Multiply that by the option’s effective leverage, and you can estimate the potential return.

How do you find the option’s leverage?

In the moomoo app, open any option quote page and look for “Effective Leverage.” That’s a practical measure of the option’s real-world leverage.

For example, if you choose a February-expiry call with strike 100, the effective leverage might be around 5.5×. (This isn’t even that high—because IV is so elevated and time value is so thick that it dilutes leverage.)

Reduce “late-night screen stress” with Conditional Orders

Intraday trading can be stressful—especially for traders in Asia who have to stay up late to watch U.S. market hours. Many people close early out of fatigue, only to wake up and see a huge move they missed.

This is where moomoo’s Conditional Orders can help you automate part of the process.

On the order screen (left), tap Conditions. On the condition page (right), you can set the trigger to the underlying price—i.e., the price of SLV. Based on your view, set a take-profit trigger. When SLV reaches that level, moomoo will automatically submit the option order for you.

Note taht the triggered order can be either a market order or a limit order.

– Market order: fills immediately, but you may suffer from wide bid-ask spreads

– Limit order: better control on price, but it may not get filled

Follow trends with a Trailing Take-Profit Order

For investors who want to ride a trend without staring at screens, moomoo also offers a more advanced tool: a Trailing Stop Order.

This order tracks the uptrend by placing a “take-profit **” below the latest price:

– As the price rises, the take-profit ** rises with it.

– If price stalls and fails to break new highs, the ** stops moving higher.

– Once price drops below the **, moomoo triggers an exit.

You can set the trailing distance by: (1) Amount (absolute price distance), or (2) Ratio (percentage distance). Again, after the ** is hit, the order can be market or limit.

2) Long Calls

No matter what, intraday trading is volatile. If you don’t want that kind of intensity, you can use a more moderate options approach: Long call.

For long calls, the key is:

– Choose a slightly out-of-the-money (OTM) strike

– Use 2–3 months to expiration

The core idea is simple: you’re betting SLV will keep rising in the near term.

Why slightly OTM? Because if SLV rises, your option can transition: from OTM → at-the-money (ATM) → in-the-money (ITM) !

That transition often causes the option price to jump sharply—because the option shifts from “mostly time value / low intrinsic” to “meaningful intrinsic value,” and the market reprices it aggressively.

Why 2–3 months, not shorter? Because short expiries give you very little room for error. If SLV doesn’t rally fast enough—or the move isn’t large enough to bring your OTM call into the money—time value can decay to zero, and you risk losing your entire premium.

A 2–3 month window gives you more time flexibility and reduces the chance of being “right but too early.”

Except OTM calls, if you’re bullish on silver over a longer horizon, you can also consider a “Pelosi-style” approach: LEAPS calls, typically deep ITM and long-dated. These contracts have relatively low time value and behave more like stock exposure with leverage.

A sample LEAPS call construction for SLV could look like this:

(Recently, Nancy Pelosi disclosed purchases of LEAPS calls on NVDA, AMZN, and GOOG.)

3) Rolling Short Puts (Systematic Premium Selling)

Beyond long-side strategies, the key observation today is this: SLV IV has surged dramatically. On a 1-year percentile basis, it’s around 99%, meaning IV is extremely high relative to its own history.

As SLV’s price exploded upward, IV also spiked—this is typical behavior during a gamma squeeze.

A practical short-put strategy for silver is straightforward. Here’s the “answer”:

– Always keep your put strike 20–25% below spot

– Use roughly 4 months to expiration

Trade in an assignment-avoiding mode (i.e., you’re not trying to take delivery; you manage and roll), and just collect premium. When the option’s value decays by 50% (or about 40–60%), buy to close and take profit, and roll the previous positions out, with strike price still 20–25% below spot and terms still around 4 months.

Repeat this roll cycle until the silver trend ends.

For the current setup, one example would be a May-expiry short put at strike 75.

Using an options calculator, you can do scenario analysis. As the example below shows:

– If one month later SLV is up 5%, this put might have already lost about half its value, allowing you to close and roll—without needing to hold until May.

Options calculators are powerful tools for stress-testing different scenarios. Investors should take advantage of them.

$SPDR Gold ETF (GLD.US)$ $iShares Silver Trust (SLV.US)$ $Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ.US)$ $SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY.US)$

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