Options Trading & Derivatives Strategist
Ivan Petrov is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Market Technician with 12 years trading options and derivatives at institutional desks. He spent six years on the equity derivatives desk at Citadel Securities before joining Interactive Brokers as a senior options education specialist. Ivan's specialty is demystifying complex strategies — covered calls, protective puts, iron condors, and LEAPS — for retail investors. He holds a Series 7 license and has trained over 5,000 retail traders through Tastytrade's education platform.
Six years pricing and hedging options at Citadel Securities gave Ivan a close view of how institutional desks think about implied volatility, theta decay, and assignment risk — the mechanics that most retail options content skips over. He brings that same rigor to MONEYlume, focused on making sure readers understand what they're actually exposed to before placing a trade, not just the payoff diagram.
At Interactive Brokers, Ivan built options education content for self-directed traders, which exposed him to the specific mistakes retail accounts make most often: selling naked calls without understanding margin requirements, ignoring early-assignment risk on dividend stocks, and misjudging how fast time decay accelerates near expiration. He writes to help readers avoid those exact errors.
View LinkedIn ProfileM.S. Financial Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University; B.S. Mathematics, MIT; CFA Charterholder; CMT Designation (CMT Association); Series 7 Licensed