Does Iron Condor actually work?

MYTH

A famous idea that does not survive an honest test.

The claim

The iron condor is a safe, defined-risk income strategy — TastyTrade / premium sellers

What we did

Tested against Expectancy net of REAL bid/ask — patient mid vs. crossing the spread, 2014–2025, real EOD bid/ask, manage 50%/21DTE.

The result

Result: -23.0 expectancy $/trade (crossing the spread)

mid -13 → cross -23/trade, 60% win, worst -677

The numbers

Worst drawdown	-6796.8%

Verdict

Sold as 'safe, defined-risk income' — but it loses money even at patient mid-price fills (-13/trade), and worse (-23) once you cross the spread. 4 legs means paying the bid/ask 4 times in and 4 out. The 60% win rate is a mirage. (Independently confirms our iron-condor audit.)

What the test did and did not do

net of real costs
point-in-time data
checked for look-ahead
tested out of sample

Almost nobody publishing a backtest says which of these they did. We list the ones we failed as well as the ones we passed.

Tested 2026-06-23. The same treatment, applied to every other system, is on the test bench.

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Written with AI assistance from our own test database. The numbers are computed, not composed.
General market commentary for education, not personalised investment advice. Backtested results are hypothetical. Trading carries a real risk of loss.