LEAPS Builder vs Fortress Optimizer

NVDA @ $202.27 · sized to maintenance-margin budget $50,000 · one live Fortress chain fetch, reused for LEAPS · US RTH, live TIMS · 20260709_0155

Raw tool dashboards: Fortress dashboard (short-term) ↗ | Fortress dashboard (Jan 2028) ↗ | LEAPS builder dashboard ↗

Recommended pick: LEAPS-A Jan '27

Top pick: LEAPS-A Jan '27 at 13 contracts, sized to the maintenance-margin budget. It leads on normalized CC income ($95,922/yr) and lower max loss ($66,170). Closest alternative: LEAPS-B Jan '27 (score 0.635 vs 0.698). Structural tradeoff: at a comparable budget the Fortress throws off $99,368/yr the bare LEAPS leaves on the table, while the LEAPS keeps uncapped upside (it only out-earns on a large sustained move past the covered-call strike). (at the default budget-fit sizing; the highlighted row and scores in the table update live as you change contract counts.)

Summary: all candidates across both horizons

One row per structure: Fortress recommended archetype and the nearest-DTE LEAPS at each horizon, plus the LEAPS builder best pick. Click any column header to sort. Hover a Fortress CC Income cell for its native short-call income. Tick two rows to compare their P&L below.

Contract count: or edit any row's Ct inline. IC, Max Loss, CC Income, PnL and Score rescale exactly (linear); DTE, BE, ROI and Leverage are contract-invariant. Maint Margin (TIMS) does NOT scale linearly: real IBKR whatIf values are pre-computed for each row's base count +/- 2 (green = exact); beyond that window it is a flagged linear estimate (~), verify in TWS.

Group ⇅	Structure / Legs ⇅	DTE ⇅	IC ⇅	Max Loss ⇅	Maint Margin ⇅	BE ⇅	CC Income/yr ⇅	ROI on Margin ⇅	PnL @ +100% ⇅	Score ⇅
Short Term	LEAPS-A Jan '27 +180C −220P +195P	190d	$33,670	$66,170	$46,975	$212.95 (+5.3%)	$95,922	+204.1%	$+258,232	0.698
Short Term	LEAPS-B Jan '27 +200C −230P +205P	190d	$21,680	$61,680	$48,698	$221.78 (+9.6%)	$49,705	+102.0%	$+305,584	0.635
Short Term	Fortress DIAMOND [ST] +165C −180P +65P −205C	190d	$21,906	$90,906	$23,804	$201.51 (-0.4%)	$99,368	+417.4%	$+121,818	0.627
Long Term	Fortress DIAMOND [Jan28] +140C −175P +70P −210C	561d	$36,546	$99,546	$24,788	$200.91 (-0.7%)	$94,888	+382.8%	$+122,178	0.542
Leaps Pick	LEAPS-A Jun '27 +180C −210P +185P	343d	$47,190	$79,690	$47,875	$216.30 (+6.9%)	$70,193	+146.6%	$+244,712	0.504
Long Term	LEAPS-A Jan '28 +180C −220P +195P	561d	$55,440	$85,440	$46,973	$226.20 (+11.8%)	$22,990	+48.9%	$+214,008	0.239
Long Term	LEAPS-B Jan '28 +200C −230P +205P	561d	$46,865	$79,365	$47,748	$236.05 (+16.7%)	$7,546	+15.8%	$+219,037	0.185

P&L comparison: -50% to +300%

At-LEAPS-expiry payoff of the LC+SP+HP core. +income adds ~1yr normalized CC income with gains capped at the CC strike (illustrative). Defaults to the best Fortress vs best LEAPS; tick two rows above to compare any pair.

Methodology and caveats

Both structures are sized to the same maintenance-margin budget $50,000. Each count is found by binary-searching the real IBKR TIMS so the structure actually fits the margin budget (TIMS is non-linear; capped by the max-loss-fit count). Off-RTH it falls back to a linear proxy, confirm in TWS.
The P&L table is the at-LEAPS-expiry payoff of the LC+SP+HP core for BOTH kinds (the rolling short call is excluded so the legs match). The +income columns add ~1yr of the normalized CC income and cap gains at the CC strike, illustrative only.
CC Income is a standardized proxy: a 14-DTE covered call struck at each structure's breakeven, Black-Scholes priced on the ticker's ATM IV (42%) at r=4.3%. Applied identically to Fortress and LEAPS so the income axis is comparable. It is not necessarily the optimal CC strike.
Maintenance margin is real IBKR TIMS via whatIf when run live in US RTH, else a Reg-T estimate. TIMS does NOT scale linearly with contracts, and the non-linearity can be severe for net-long structures (e.g. DELL: $0 at 3 contracts, $1,690 at 4, $9,926 at 5, $18,162 at 6). Each tool runs the whatIf at the structure's own contract count. To handle the non-linearity, this comparison pre-computes the real IBKR TIMS at each displayed count +/- 2 contracts (the inline editor shows those exact figures in green); beyond that window it falls back to a flagged linear estimate (~). Margin-budget sizing binary-searches the real TIMS so each structure's contract count actually fits the budget (capped by the max-loss-fit count, whichever budget binds first); a linear approximation is used only when whatIf is unavailable (off-RTH). Verify the exact figure in TWS at your intended size.
Fortress is run twice on the same chain data: short-term mode (near LEAPS) and standard mode (far LEAPS / Jan 2028). LEAPS builder runs once with min-dte 180d so it covers both horizons. Fortress data from fortress_results.json; LEAPS data from the leap_builder --margin window.MARGIN_CHAINS. Spot ($202.27) is the Fortress run value; runs are back-to-back but a small drift is possible.
Read-only and advisory. No orders are placed.