Bored Day Traders Locked at Home Are Now Obsessed With Options

Forget buy-and hold. Stuck at home and dreaming of a killing, bored retail traders are branching out into all manner of Wall Street exotica.

Darting in and out of stock options, dabbling in complicated exchange-traded funds, devouring trading how-to books by the dozen -- all have become tools in the self-directed portfolio playbook. Locked down and socially distant with lots of time and (apparently) money to spare, they’re leveraging zero-percent brokerage fees in new and surprising ways.

Big shock: Wall Street says it will end badly.

“Obviously you’re exposing yourself, depending on how you’re doing it, to catastrophic loss,”...