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Rolling a Leg

Rolling moves one leg of a position to a different strike without closing the whole trade: VolNinja buys back the leg where it is and reopens it at a new strike, in a single order. It's how you re-center a tested short, chase a delta target, or take in more credit while keeping the rest of the position on.

You can roll a leg two ways — by hand from an open position, or automatically as a management rule that fires on conditions you set. Both do exactly the same thing under the hood.

Important

Rolling today is a vertical roll: the new leg keeps the same expiration and only the strike changes. Rolling out to a later expiry isn't available yet.

Roll a leg by hand

Rolling happens on an open position's legs, so you start from its details. Open the position to bring up its Details sheet (see Position details), go to the Overview tab, and find the leg in the Legs card. Open that leg's ⋯ menu — for an open leg it lists Roll Leg…, above the red close actions — and choose it to open the Roll Leg dialog.

The dialog's subtitle restates the leg you're about to roll — its action, size, right, current strike, and expiry — so you always know which leg you're touching.

The Roll Leg dialog: Solver, Target, Execution, and the Roll Preview panel

Pick the new strike — the Solver

The Solver decides how VolNinja chooses the strike to roll into. Pick the one that matches how you think about the trade:

  • Delta — enter a Target |Δ| (e.g. 0.10); VolNinja rolls to the strike whose delta is closest.
  • Premium — enter a Target premium $; a Price Reference (Mid / Bid / Ask) appears so you can say which quote to match.
  • Strike — name the exact Target strike you want.
  • Offset — enter Points from current strike (e.g. +25), measured from where the leg sits now.

Choose how it executes

Execution sets how the roll order is worked:

  • Peg to Mid — works the combined close-and-reopen at the mid-price for a fairer fill; a progress view shows how it's going.
  • Market — takes the current market immediately, favoring a certain fill over price.

Read the Roll Preview

As you enter a target, the Roll Preview panel fills in with the candidate strike, its live bid / mid / ask and delta, and the economics of the roll:

Close ≈ … → Open ≈ … · Net ≈ … credit / debit

That tells you, before you commit, whether the roll takes in credit or costs a debit. An Estimate badge means the target strike isn't in the live quote set yet, so the final strike is re-selected against live data when the roll runs.

When it looks right, press Roll Leg to send it. The old leg is closed and the new one opened together; afterward the old leg is marked R (rolled) and the position's number of rolls ticks up — both visible in Position details. The rest of the position is untouched.

Roll a leg automatically

The same operation is available as a rule action, so a roll can fire on its own — for example, roll a short leg back to 0.10 delta if the underlying runs past it. Add it wherever you build rules: on a template so every position it opens inherits it (see Management rules), or on a single open position after the fact (see Automating a position).

In the rule editor, set Action Type → Roll Leg. The roll-specific fields appear:

A management rule with Action Type set to Roll Leg, showing the Leg to Roll, Roll Target By, Target, and Execution Strategy fields

  • Leg to Roll — which of the template's combo legs to roll.
  • Roll Target By — Delta / Premium / Strike / Strike Offset, the same four solvers as the manual dialog.
  • Target — the value for that solver (its label changes to match — Target |Δ|, Target Premium $, Target Strike, or Points From Current Strike).
  • Premium Price — Mid / Bid / Ask, shown only for the Premium solver.
  • Execution Strategy — Peg to Mid or Market Order.

Everything about when the roll fires — the conditions — works exactly like any other rule; see Rules & conditions.

How a roll works with standing orders

If the leg you're rolling is protected by broker-side standing orders, VolNinja clears the ones the roll would invalidate — the leg's own orders plus any whole-position orders — before it places the roll, then restores protection once the new leg is in place. The one thing it won't do is pull a stop that's about to fire: if a conflicting order is close to triggering, the roll is refused with a clear message rather than stripping protection at the worst moment.

Warning

In LIVE mode a roll places real orders — it closes and reopens against your real account. Rehearse rolls in Paper first, and never submit test orders while you are in live mode — see Paper vs live.