Risk Disclosure

OPTIONS TRADING IS HIGHLY SPECULATIVE AND CAN PRODUCE TOTAL OR EXCESS-OF-CAPITAL LOSS IN A SHORT PERIOD. CERTAIN OPTIONS STRATEGIES EXPOSE YOU TO LOSSES SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER THAN THE CAPITAL YOU INITIALLY COMMIT.

This Risk Disclosure describes risks associated with using Vantis and with trading options based on outputs you may see in the Service. It does not enumerate every possible risk. You must read it in full before using the Service to inform any trading decision. If any portion is unclear, do not use the Service to inform trading decisions until you have consulted a licensed professional.

0. Notice — Catastrophic-Loss Risk

YOU CAN LOSE 100% OR MORE OF THE CAPITAL YOU COMMIT.

Options trading involves substantial risk and is not suitable for every investor. Some options strategies — including, but not limited to, naked (uncovered) call writing, short straddles, short strangles, calendar spreads, and ratio spreads — expose you to losses substantially greater than the premium you receive and, in some cases, greater than the equity in your account. You can lose your entire investment in a single trade, in a short period of time. Markets can move rapidly and irrationally; liquidity can disappear; and information that appeared favorable can prove catastrophic in retrospect.

If you are not prepared to accept these risks, do not use the Service to inform trading decisions.

1. Read the OCC Options Disclosure Document

Before trading options, you must read “Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options,” the Options Disclosure Document (“ODD”) published by The Options Clearing Corporation. The ODD is the authoritative regulatory document on standardized options risk. It is available from your broker or at theocc.com.

Vantis does not substitute for the ODD. Reading this Risk Disclosure does not satisfy your obligation to read the ODD.

2. General Investment Risk

All investing involves risk of loss. Market prices fluctuate based on countless factors, many unpredictable. There is no investment, strategy, or analytical method that guarantees positive returns. Diversification does not protect against losses in declining markets.

No score, signal, ranking, structure illustration, or commentary in the Service should be interpreted as a prediction of future market behavior. The Service does not predict prices, returns, volatility, or outcomes. Markets can move rapidly, irrationally, and without warning; liquidity can disappear in stress events; and instruments that appear safe under normal conditions can produce catastrophic losses under conditions the methodology does not model.

3. Risks Specific to Options

Options are derivative contracts that confer the right (for the buyer) or obligation (for the seller) to transact in an underlying security at a specified price by a specified date. Options trading involves risks beyond those of buying and holding stock:

3.1 Loss of premium (option buyer). If you buy an option that expires worthless, you lose 100% of the premium paid. This is common; most options expire out of the money.

3.2 Unlimited or large losses (option seller). Selling options exposes you to losses that can be substantially greater than the premium you receive and, in some cases, greater than your account equity:

• Naked (uncovered) calls can produce unlimited losses if the underlying stock rises. There is no upper bound on the price of a stock and therefore no upper bound on the loss from a short call without an offsetting long position. Most retail brokerages restrict or disallow naked calls.
• Naked (uncovered) puts obligate you to buy stock at the strike price regardless of how far the stock has fallen. Maximum loss is the strike price multiplied by 100, less premium received, per contract — meaning you can lose substantially more than the premium received and, on margin, more than your account equity.
• Cash-secured puts are a distinct strategy in which the strike price (× 100) in cash is set aside as collateral. Cash-secured puts are not “naked,” but the economic exposure to a falling stock is similar — the maximum loss remains the strike price (× 100) less premium received.
• Vertical (debit/credit) spreads define maximum loss to the width of the spread less net premium. Other multi-leg structures — calendar spreads, diagonal spreads, ratio spreads, and any structure containing a short uncovered leg — do not have a defined maximum loss and may carry risks comparable to or greater than the equivalent naked position.
• Short straddles, short strangles, and other delta-neutral premium-selling structures combine the loss profiles of short calls and short puts. Sharp moves in either direction can produce rapid, substantial losses. Strategies of this type are responsible for many of the largest individual-account drawdowns in retail options trading history.

3.3 Assignment risk. As a seller of options, you may be assigned at any time before expiration on American-style options. Early assignment can occur for many reasons, including dividend events. You must be prepared to deliver the underlying security or cash regardless of your other plans.

3.4 Expiration risk. Options that finish in the money may be auto-exercised. Options near the at-the-money strike at expiration carry pin risk: small post-close moves can change exercise outcomes unpredictably.

3.5 Margin calls. Some options strategies require margin. Adverse moves can produce margin calls that require additional capital or forced liquidation at unfavorable prices.

3.6 Time decay. Options lose value as expiration approaches, all else equal. This favors sellers but works against buyers; an option you bought may decline in value even if the underlying moves in your direction, if it does not move enough or fast enough.

3.7 Volatility risk. Implied volatility changes can move option prices independently of the underlying. A position that is correct on direction can still lose money if volatility shifts adversely. Implied volatility frequently expands ahead of binary events (earnings releases, FDA decisions, FOMC announcements, regulatory actions) and contracts sharply once the event passes — known as “IV crush.” Long-option positions held through such events can lose substantially even if the underlying moves in the predicted direction. Short-premium strategies that profit from IV contraction can produce outsized losses if the realized move exceeds the priced-in expectation.

3.8 Liquidity risk. Bid-ask spreads on options can be wide. You may not be able to enter or exit a position at the price displayed. Mid-quote prices used in models may not be achievable.

3.9 Earnings and event risk. Earnings releases, FDA decisions, regulatory announcements, and other binary events can produce large overnight moves not reflected in implied volatility on a continuous basis. Strategies that perform well in normal markets can suffer outsized losses during these events.

3.10 Overnight and weekend risk. Options markets are closed when significant news may occur. You cannot adjust positions outside market hours.

3.11 Total-account risk. Options losses can compound. A series of correlated trades — even ones that appear independent — can produce drawdowns large enough to threaten your entire account.

4. Risks Specific to Vantis Outputs

Outputs displayed in Vantis are model estimates, not predictions or recommendations. Specific limitations:

4.1 Model error. Scores, signals, and structure suggestions are derived from a published methodology that uses public market data and assumed parameters. The methodology may be flawed or incomplete. Inputs may be wrong. Models that worked in past regimes may fail in the future.

4.2 Data delay and accuracy. Market data displayed in the Service is provided by one or more third-party market-data vendors and may be delayed, cached, or stale depending on the source. A freshness indicator near each output identifies the current source. Bid-ask quotes, implied volatility surfaces, and Greeks are estimates from third-party data providers and may differ from your broker’s quotes at the time of execution. Even when a freshness indicator labels data as “live,” displayed prices are not executable prices — see §5.4.

4.3 Score interpretation. A score is a numerical output of the published methodology applied to public market data. It is not a prediction that any individual trade will be profitable, and it does not represent any view on whether you should enter, hold, or exit a position. Many scored trades, including high-scoring trades, will lose money. No portion of the score reflects analysis of your account, suitability, or risk capacity. Past or modeled relationships between scores and outcomes do not predict future results, and no minimum or maximum number of high-scoring trades will be profitable.

4.4 Kelly sizing limitations. Sizing outputs derived from the Kelly criterion assume that the win probability and reward/risk inputs are accurate. Both are model estimates with material uncertainty. Real outcomes can differ. Treat sizing as directional guidance, not precision. Kelly mathematics also assumes you can repeat the bet many times; in practice, sequence and correlation matter, and a single early drawdown can compound into a substantial account loss before averages assert themselves.

4.5 AI-generated commentary. Some outputs include narrative commentary generated by a third-party large language model. Such commentary may contain factual errors, hallucinations, omissions, fabricated references, invented numerical values, incorrect attributions of cause, and stale information based on training-data cutoff dates. The model’s output is not reviewed by a human analyst before display. Confident, fluent, or analyst-sounding prose is a feature of how language models produce text and is not evidence of accuracy or expertise. The model does not have access to your portfolio, account balances, tax position, suitability, or risk capacity, and any apparent personalization in its output reflects only the data you have uploaded. References in AI commentary to specific tickers, structures, strikes, or expirations are illustrative of the methodology applied to public data and are not recommendations, endorsements, suitability assessments, or offers to engage in any specific transaction. You must independently verify every factual statement, number, ratio, percentile, and directional claim in AI commentary before relying on it for any purpose. AI commentary is not investment advice. We do not train any AI model — internal or external — on Content you upload. AI commentary may also be unavailable, or shown as a deterministic summary generated without the AI model; the underlying scores are computed deterministically regardless. See the AI & Automation Disclosure §1.

AI-generated commentary is off by default for new accounts. You affirmatively enable it at first use; you can disable at any time at Settings → Privacy. Disabling stops new prompts from being sent; previously sent prompts are subject to the retention described in the Privacy Policy §3.3 and the AI & Automation Disclosure.

4.6 “Iron Rules” are configurable defaults, not investment advice. The values displayed under the “Iron Rules” label (e.g., “close at 50% profit,” “exit at 21 days to expiration,” “no positions through earnings”) are configurable defaults reflecting commonly cited practices in premium-selling. They are not prescriptions, recommendations, requirements, or investment advice. They have not been calibrated to your account, situation, or strategy. They may not be optimal for your circumstances; they may not protect against adverse market conditions; and following them does not guarantee any result. The labeling of a parameter as a “Rule” reflects a product-design convention, not a legal or analytical authority. The Iron Rules belong to you — you configure them; the Service tracks your actuals against the configuration you set.

4.7 No personalization, including in proximity to your data. Vantis does not assess whether any output is suitable for you. Outputs are not adjusted for your risk tolerance, time horizon, financial goals, account size, tax situation, holdings outside the inputs you supply, or other personal factors. Where you supply a numerical input to a calculator feature (such as account size to the Position Size Calculator), the calculator performs a mechanical computation on the input you provide; this is not analysis of your circumstances and is not personalized advice. Where the Service displays analytical artifacts in proximity to data you have uploaded (such as a portfolio export or trade history), the Service is showing how a generic methodology applied to public data describes a hypothetical position of that nature. The Service is not analyzing your position, your tax basis, your objectives, or your capacity to absorb loss. Apparent personalization is a function of the data you choose to upload; it is not advice tailored to you, and no advisory or fiduciary relationship arises from the proximity of your data to model output.

4.8 Geographic restriction. The Service is restricted to United States residents. Outputs are not designed for foreign markets, foreign tax regimes, or non-U.S. brokerage rules.

5. Risks of Using a Software Tool to Inform Trading

5.1 Tool failure. Software can have bugs, outages, calculation errors, or display errors. Do not act on an output without independent verification.

5.2 Anchoring and over-reliance. Quantitative outputs can create false confidence. The presence of a number or a structured recommendation does not make it correct. You may be tempted to trade more often, larger, or with less critical thinking because the tool produces an output.

5.3 Confirmation bias. Users tend to remember outputs that worked and forget those that didn’t. Outcome statistics maintained internally are not the same as the statistical patterns the methodology describes.

5.4 Displayed prices are not executable prices. Market data displayed in the Service may be delayed, cached, or stale depending on the source; a freshness indicator near each output identifies the current source. Bid-ask spreads on options can be substantial; prices displayed in structure illustrations and scoring are typically derived from mid-quote estimates and are unlikely to be achievable in execution. Your fills will reflect actual bid/ask conditions at your broker at the moment of execution, including spread, depth, and any change in implied volatility or underlying price between the time the output was displayed and the time you place the order.

6. Tax and Regulatory Risk

Options trading has complex tax implications, including wash-sale rules, short-term vs. long-term capital gains, mark-to-market rules for certain traders, and rules specific to qualified accounts. Consult a tax professional. Do not rely on Vantis or any output for tax guidance.

Securities laws apply to your trading activities. You are responsible for compliance with applicable federal, state, and brokerage rules.

7. Cybersecurity and Data Risk

The Service stores Sensitive Financial Information you upload (such as brokerage transaction exports), as defined in the Terms of Service §16. While we use commercially reasonable safeguards described in the Privacy Policy §6, no system is perfectly secure. A breach could expose information you have provided. If a security incident triggers notification obligations under the Washington Data Breach Notification Act (RCW 19.255) or other applicable law, we will notify affected users and the appropriate authorities within the timeframes required by those laws. See the Privacy Policy for details on what is stored, how it is used, and how to delete it.

8. No Reliance

You agree that:

• You will not rely on any output, in whole or in part, as a basis for any investment decision.
• Vantis does not pick stocks for you. The screen narrows the universe; the conviction is yours. Every order is reviewed and placed by you, in your own brokerage.
• Any decision you make to buy, sell, hold, or otherwise transact in any security is your own, made independently and based on your own research, judgment, and consultation with your own licensed advisers.
• You will independently verify any data, score, calculation, structure, or assertion produced by the Service before acting on it.
• The Service does not establish any advisory, fiduciary, agency, planning, suitability, or trust relationship between you and Vantis, and no such relationship may be inferred from the existence of these terms, your use of the Service, or any communication from Vantis.
• Apparent personalization (e.g., outputs displayed in proximity to your uploaded portfolio data) reflects only the data you have provided and does not constitute analysis of your individual financial circumstances.
• You waive, to the maximum extent permitted by law, any claim that any output, score, signal, structure illustration, sizing calculation, AI-generated commentary, or other element of the Service induced you to take or refrain from taking any investment action.
• You accept all risk of loss arising from your trading activities, including loss of your entire account and, for certain strategies, losses in excess of the capital you initially commit.

9. Hypothetical and Modeled Performance

Where the Service displays historical scores, signal values, model outputs, statistics derived from past observations, or any associated returns, win rates, or risk metrics:

• Such results are hypothetical and were not achieved by any actual investor account.
• Such results do not reflect actual trading and may not reflect the impact of material economic, market, or behavioral factors.
• Such results do not reflect transaction costs, bid-ask slippage, taxes, options assignment or early-exercise events, margin interest, or other costs you would actually incur.
• Past or modeled performance is not indicative of, and may differ materially from, future actual performance.
• The methodology, parameters, and underlying data may have been adjusted with the benefit of hindsight, and may be revised in the future.
• You should not draw any conclusion about future returns from any displayed historical or modeled result.

PAST PERFORMANCE — INCLUDING HYPOTHETICAL OR MODELED PERFORMANCE — IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.

10. Tail Risk and Market-Stress Events

The Service’s methodology is calibrated to public market data observed over historical periods. Markets periodically experience stress events — including, without limitation, equity-market crashes, volatility spikes, liquidity dislocations, flash crashes, sudden geopolitical shocks, and pandemic-era disruptions — during which the relationships between price, volatility, and other variables that the methodology relies upon may break down. Strategies that perform favorably under normal conditions can suffer outsized or catastrophic losses during such events. The methodology does not predict, anticipate, or protect against tail-risk events. You should not assume that any score, signal, or structure illustration accounts for the possibility of stress events that materially differ from historical observations.

11. Operational Risk

The Service depends on software, third-party data providers, third-party AI providers, internet connectivity, and infrastructure that may experience outages, delays, or errors at any time, including at moments when you most need access. Outputs may be unavailable, delayed, or incorrect during such events. You should not place any options position the management of which depends on continuous availability of the Service. If the Service is unavailable while you have open positions, you remain solely responsible for managing those positions, including monitoring market conditions, responding to assignment, addressing margin requirements, and exiting at expiration.

11.1 Risk-detection outputs are not guarantees; absence of a warning is not a representation of safety. Where the Service surfaces a warning, label, or action item regarding a position’s risk characteristics — for example, an “uncovered” indicator on a short option, a near-expiry alert, or any other signal that a position warrants attention — that output reflects only what the Service can compute from data you have uploaded as of the time of computation. The absence of such a warning is not a representation that your account is adequately covered, hedged, sized, or otherwise safe, and is not a substitute for your own verification at your brokerage. Sources of false-negative risk include, without limitation: brokerage transaction or holdings exports that are stale, partial, or out of sync with your current positions; reconciliation gaps between uploaded holdings and the option-position history we derive from your transactions; positions you hold in accounts you have not uploaded; positions opened, closed, assigned, or expired since your last upload; share or option activity in accounts other than the one currently displayed; risk-detection logic that may contain errors, omissions, or limitations of scope (for example, a feature may consider only same-expiry hedges and not diagonal hedges, or may evaluate coverage only within a single account); and outages or errors as described above. You remain solely responsible for verifying your own coverage, hedging, and risk exposure at your brokerage, independently of any warning, label, or action item the Service does or does not display.

12. Methodology Change

Vantis may modify, replace, or remove signals, gates, weights, scoring algorithms, structure-suggestion logic, AI prompts, AI providers, and other methodology components at any time and without prior notice. A score generated under one version of the methodology has no necessary relationship to a score generated under a subsequent version. Positions you entered based on a prior methodology may, after a methodology change, be evaluated by the Service differently. The Service does not retroactively re-score or revise positions you have already entered. You remain solely responsible for managing positions throughout their life cycle, regardless of any methodology change.

13. No Conflicts; Disclaimer of Warranties

Vantis does not receive payment, rebate, or other consideration for displaying any specific ticker, structure, or strike. Vantis does not take positions in any security as part of, or in coordination with, the operation of the Service. Scoring weights and gating rules are determined by the published methodology and applied uniformly to all users.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. THE SERVICE, INCLUDING ALL OUTPUTS, SCORES, SIGNALS, STRUCTURE ILLUSTRATIONS, SIZING CALCULATIONS, AI-GENERATED COMMENTARY, AND DATA DISPLAYED, IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, TIMELINESS, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR FITNESS FOR ANY TRADING OR INVESTMENT PURPOSE. SEE ALSO TERMS OF SERVICE §18.

14. Acknowledgment

By using Vantis to inform any options trading decision, you confirm that:

• You have read, understood, and accepted this Risk Disclosure;
• You have read the OCC Options Disclosure Document (“Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options”), or you will read it before placing any options trade — and you will not place any options trade without having read it;
• You have obtained from your brokerage the level of options-trading approval required for any structure you intend to enter;
• You understand that you may lose substantial sums, including more than you initially commit to a position, and that some strategies expose you to losses substantially greater than your account equity.

If you do not accept these risks, do not use the Service for trading decisions.

15. Related Documents

This Risk Disclosure must be read alongside the Vantis Terms of Service (especially §§6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20), the AI & Automation Disclosure, the Privacy Policy, and the OCC’s Options Disclosure Document. In any conflict between this document and the Terms of Service, the Terms of Service control. The Disclaimers page is a non-binding plain-English summary; in any conflict between the Disclaimers page and any other Vantis legal document, the other document controls. Disputes arising from your use of the Service are governed by Terms of Service §24.

We may update this Risk Disclosure. The current version and its effective date are published at /legal/changelog, and continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance. For changes that materially expand the risks described, we will give advance notice and record your acceptance of the version then in effect. Your acceptance is recorded and retained for legal and regulatory purposes.