The payoff chart

What the chart draws#

The chart card's third tab, PAYOFF, answers one question: what happens to this position if the price moves, all else held constant. It draws the result at each price you could close at, with the mark marked. It has three faces, chosen by what is in front of it.

PROTECT#

For a PROTECT account, or a draft of one on the PERP ticket, the plot shows the whole position: the perp on its own margin plus the option pair valued at what the front would pay for it, netted against what you paid. A draft is drawn before the perp exists, so you see the floor you would have before you send anything.

Each option leg's strike is a vertical marker. The liquidation floor before the options is a dashed line ("floor before the options"); the floor after them, FLOOR NOW, is the one labelled marker. The legend has four chips and nothing else: the structure, the comparison, the floor before, and the funding key.

There is one comparison line, chosen by floor equivalence: the plain perp, with no options, that liquidates at exactly the same floor. For PROTECT that is a perp with less leverage (taking less leverage is the other way to push a floor away). The chip names it in words, for example "same floor, less leverage — a plain perp at 3.60× instead of 5.00×", and if a plain perp cannot reach that floor even at the venue's maximum leverage, the chip says so. A strip under the plot shows the structure minus that perp, dollar for dollar at each price: above the zero line the structure is ahead, below it just changing the leverage would have paid better.

The right axis: what holding it costs or earns#

There is no funding line on the plot. The net funding of the structure lives on the right-hand axis, as a percentage per year of your margin, worked out as if the price were at each point on the chart: each leg's time value there on today's market, times its decay rate. The tick labels are in words, "cost 12 %" or "earn 5 %", and coloured by their own value, red for cost and green for earn. A colour strip in the gutter reads as a key, with a small pointer at the rate at the mark (the ticket's "now"). A thin band along the bottom edge of the plot is the same colour at each price, so you can see where on the chart holding the structure would cost you most. On a phone the strip stays and the tick labels drop. It is the same computation as the ticket's FUNDING / YR row.

A single option#

For the OPTION ticket, a priced draft lights the same tab: P/L at close for the one leg in hand, bought or sold, call or put, against every price, with its breakeven marked. There is no perp line, because an option opened on its own has no backing perp for a "same floor" comparison to mean anything against. A single option you already hold draws the same way from its own strike, side, size and the premium actually paid or received; if the account holds several singles, they sum into one curve, each strike marked in its wing colour (call green, put red). The right axis is there too, as a percentage of the premium: a bought option pays funding (cost, red), a sold one receives it (earn, green).

LAYERS: what else the chart can show#

The chart toolbar carries a BID | ASK selector (the selected side draws bold), the DECAY stepper, and a LAYERS control, each switch greyed with its reason when it has nothing to draw. LISTED QUOTES are the oracle market's actual quotes at the strikes it lists, drawn only near a listed expiry. ORACLE is the two straight-line surfaces, bid and ask, at the decay in view. MARKET is the front: the best standing bid and ask across the makers. OWN is your own posted and draft curves. MARK is the mark of a held position or a draft at that decay. The vertical line is labelled SPOT. On EARN a CURVES = OWN | MARKET pair sits beside them. See Pricing for what the oracle, the front and the mark each mean. Which switches are offered narrows per view: the OPTION view offers only LISTED QUOTES and ORACLE.

The DECAY stepper#

A − months + stepper on the chart toolbar sets which decay of the surface is drawn, in months, fractions included. − and + step through the listed expiries, and a typed number is drawn at exactly that decay. On the OPTION view it is the same number as the ticket's own DECAY box, so stepping one writes the other.

What it does not draw#

The tab stays disabled — greyed, with its reason — for an EARN account (risk is stated at the equity level there, never as a price). Everywhere outside this chart — the dashboard, the accounts table — risk is stated as EQUITY NOW and the EQUITY AT WHICH IT LIQUIDATES, in dollars, the same on every scope and kind.