Multi-leg options trading

Some trading strategies involve buying multiple securities, sometimes of multiple types, at the same time. There are a number of reasons to do this, such as limiting risk exposure of an options play, increasing profitability of certain outcomes, or even purchasing shares to cover options contracts.

Multi-leg orders allow you to enter multiple buy & sell option orders at the same time instead of having to place separate single orders one by one. This makes it more convenient to be able to set and execute trades with a click, plus it makes sure that your strategy isn’t thrown off-balance by price changes that might occur if you were executing the legs separately. And, since a multi-leg trade counts as a single order, you’re only charged 1 base commission fee for the entire transaction (plus the standard per-leg options fees).

The Questrade Edge platforms have a built-in multi-leg trading feature that makes multi-leg trading fast and convenient, arranging and executing multiple trades at the same time. Multi-leg trading comes with 17 pre-defined multi-leg strategies, such as covered calls, calendars, straddles and strangles. On top of that, you can create your own custom strategy with up to four legs.

Required options levels

Options strategies require the appropriate options trading level to be set in your account. Options come in four levels, from 1 (for the most basic option trading) to 4 (for the most sophisticated multi-leg strategies). If you are opening a new account, you can select your option level after you indicate the type of account you’re opening. If you would like to change the options level of an existing account, you can change them at any time through your account settings.

The options level required to execute multi-leg trades will depend on the strategy. Some multi-leg options strategies, such as long straddles or married puts, can be executed in any account at options level 1, but more advanced strategies may require higher options levels, which can only be enabled in margin accounts that meet minimum balance requirements. Learn more about options requirements in our Options levels article.

See our platform tutorials lesson to learn how to make multi-leg trades in Edge Web Trading and Edge Desktop.