Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin · Monday, September 28, 2026
Bill Ackman strongly criticizes the explosion in popularity of zero-day options, which expire within hours and constitute nearly half of S&P 500 options activity. Lapin relays Ackman's view that these are not investments but high-risk bets on direction and timing, akin to a coin flip, and illegal if based on insider information. Even seasoned investors with extensive resources cannot consistently predict such short-term movements.
“I want to shout this from the rooftops. One day options or zero day options are contracts that bet where a stock or an index is going to land by the end of the trading day. They expire in hours. And they have exploded in popularity. These things now make up close to half of all options activity tied to the S&P 500.”
“Here's the big problem. An option is a bet on direction and timing. You are not investing here. It is basically a coin flip unless you have confidential information, which is also not investing, that is insider trading, and that is illegal.”
“Bill is a billionaire who has studied companies for years and has a huge team to do it. And even he can't call a single day. So when somebody shows up on your feed and says they can, that's your cue to close the app.”