The Option Liquidity Cliff

One real option chain, one expiry, one moment in time. Every contract on the same underlying — and the cost of trading them differs by more than thirty times. Tap any strike. The cheapest options are the most expensive things on the board.

TSLA calls · 17 Jul 2026 expiry (1DTE) · quotes at the 16 Jul close, 15:59:59 ET · source: Alpaca. Delta implied from each market mid via Black-Scholes (S=391.17, T=1/365, r=4.5%).
← deep in the moneyat the money · 391far out of the money →
under 5%
5–15%
over 15%

Spread % is the round-trip cost of crossing, as a share of the premium. Tick floor is the tightest spread arithmetic permits: one cent divided by the premium. When a contract sits at its floor, the spread is not a liquidity opinion — it is a rounding rule, and nothing you do fixes it.