Every idea in Greenlight comes with the same chart: profit or loss at expiry. Once you can read it in two seconds, you can judge any spread, condor or butterfly without doing the math.
The five things to look at
The zero line. The horizontal grey line across the middle. Above it you make money, below it you lose. Green shading is profit, red is loss.
The floor. The flat part at the bottom. That is your max loss, and it is flat because the option you bought stops the bleeding. Owning shares has no floor; the line would keep falling off the chart.
The ceiling. The flat part at the top: your max profit. Defined-risk trades cap the win as well as the loss. Most of Greenlight’s ideas have a lower ceiling than floor, which is why the chance of profit matters so much.
Where the line crosses zero. That price is your breakeven at expiry. Everything to the right of it (for a bullish trade) is a win.
The dashed blue line. The stock’s price right now. The distance between it and the breakeven is your cushion: how far the stock can move against you before the trade turns into a loss at expiry.
Shapes you will see
One step up (left low, right high): a bullish put credit spread or call debit spread.
One step down: a bearish call credit spread or put debit spread.
A plateau in the middle: an iron condor. Profit inside the range, a floor on both sides.
A tent: an iron butterfly. A tall peak at one price, sloping down to floors on both sides.
A lopsided tent: a broken-wing butterfly. One side has a floor, the other side flattens out at a small profit.
One thing the chart does not show
It shows the result on expiry day only. Before then, the line is a curve, and a trade can be down on paper even when the stock is on the right side of breakeven. That is normal. Greenlight’s plan tells you when to take profit early, where to stop out, and the date to be out by, so you are not relying on the last day.
For information and education only. Not financial advice. Greenlight never places trades. Examples use round sample numbers, not live prices. Options involve risk and are not suitable for everyone; read the options disclosure document.