Unit-scale bug reverses key result in 0DTE options paper, confirmed by author
A replication of Grigory Vilkov's 2026 paper on zero-days-to-expiry (0DTE) options trading rules uncovered a unit-scale bug in the cost calculation code, where bid-ask spread costs were being applied at one-hundredth of their true size. Once corrected, every unconditional trading strategy in the paper turned unprofitable, and the headline conditional Sharpe ratio fell from +1.55 to −0.70 after retraining the model with accurate labels. The bug also contaminated the machine-learning layer, as the classifier's training labels were derived from the flawed cost figures, meaning the model had learned from mislabelled data. Vilkov confirmed the finding within two days, acknowledged the error extended to his private longer-sample dataset, and pushed a fix with a unit-scale assertion module to prevent similar issues. The case has been highlighted as an example of how open data and code sharing enables meaningful error detection and correction in financial research.
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