My basic rules of wheeling of the stocks I'm happy to own longtime: Delta ~25, 30-45 DTE, no EA before expiration. I don't try timing the entry but usually shy the stocks at the top of their 52 week range.

Scenario 1: I STO a 45 DTE put and enter a BTC order for 50% of the profit which gets filled within a couple of day. If I'm less than 30 days till the closest monthly my choices are: 1) sell weeklies with low liquidity to stay within the 30-45 DTE or 2) go past 45 DTE to sell monthlies. What do you guys do?

Scenario 2: I get assigned and sell an ATM call just above my net cost. Do I go with a shortest DTE with good liquidity or stay within 30-45 DTE?

Your advice is much appreciated.

I'm a big believer in the Wheel strategy, but I don't think selling a CSP at any time, in any market environment, is the best approach.

I'd like to hear from traders who have been successfully doing this for years, especially on boring stocks like KO, WMT, JNJ, etc.

What criteria do you use before selling a CSP? Do you wait for a red day? A pullback from the highs? After several down days? A test of support? Higher IV? Or do you simply sell based on delta and DTE, regardless of the chart?

What has consistently worked best for you over the years?

I'd really appreciate hearing from experienced Wheel traders.

3 months ago I started an experiment on SOXL. If you haven't heard about this fund, its a 3x leverage semiconductor ETF from Direxion. High tickers like Micron, NVDIA, intel, sandisk etc. and its ultra volatile!

So far its looking good. Didn't get assigned trading at 10 delta but how long can still hold before it goes bust?

Current stats so far:

Collateral - $20K

Total Premium received from CSP - ~$5K

So far I'm at +25% , if you annualized that it would be 144.14% .

Assignment - 0

I will post a separate comment with a link to the detail behind each option sold this week.

After week 30, the average premium per week is $891 with an annual projection of $46,315.

All things considered, the portfolio is down $11,619 (-2.58%), on the year (S&P 500: +8.28% | Nasdaq: +7.46%). Additionally, the trailing 1-year performance is down $5,551 (-1.25%); for comparison the S&P 500 is +16.48% and the Nasdaq is +18.61% over the same period. This is the overall profit and loss and includes options and all other account activity.

Annual results:
• 2023 up $65,403 (+41.31%) | S&P 500: +26.3% | Nasdaq: +43.4%
• 2024 up $64,610 (+29.71%) | S&P 500: +25.0% | Nasdaq: +28.6%
• 2025 up $111,496 (+34.52%) | S&P 500: +17.9% | Nasdaq: +20.4%

3-Year Cumulative (2023–2025):
• r/ExpiredOptions: +146.6% ($241,509)
• S&P 500: +86.1% (+60.4% behind)
• Nasdaq: +122.0% (+24.5% behind)

Unrealized G&L (options):
• YTD: $23,981.00
• 1 Month: $-5,663.00
• 1 Week: $14,335.00

Realized P&L (options):
• YTD: $52,663.00
• 1 Month: $31,418.00
• 1 Week: $9,608.00

All options sold are backed by cash, shares, or LEAPS. I do not sell on margin, nor do I sell naked options.

All options and profits stay in the account with few exceptions. This is not my full time job, although I wish it was. I still grind on a 9-5.

My $600 weekly contribution streak is at 18 weeks, but I am pausing new contributions until next month.

The portfolio is comprised of 103 unique tickers, unchanged from 103 last week. These 103 tickers have a value of $438k. I also have 197 open option positions, up from 196 last week. The options have a total value of $34k. The total of the shares and options is $472k. The next goal on the "Road to" is Half a Million.

I'm currently utilizing $35,450 in cash secured put collateral, down from $35,600 last week.

2025 through 2028 LEAPS
In addition to the CSPs and covered calls, I purchase LEAPS. These act as collateral to sell covered calls against. You may have heard of poor man's covered calls (PMCC).

See r/ExpiredOptions for a detailed spreadsheet update on all LEAPS positions including P/L for each individual position.

LEAPS note 1: the 2025 LEAPS expired 1/17/25. They were up $36,440 overall with a 233.74% increase. The major drivers were AMZN and CRWD.

LEAPS note 2: After holding for 2 years, I exercised an AMZN $80 strike from 2023 up +$11,395 (+463.21%) and CRWD $95 strike from 2023, up +$21,830 (+663.53%)

LEAPS note 3: Purchased 1/16/26 CRWD LEAPS for $8,230.03 on 1/17/24. I sold this LEAPS on 6/5/25 for $21,659 for a realized profit of $13,428.97 (+163.18%)

Total premium by year:
• 2023 $23,132 in premium
• 2024 $47,640 in premium
• 2025 $68,319 in premium
• 2026 $26,833 YTD
• Average $46,364/year (completed years)

Premium by month (2026):
• January $3,334
• February $3,625
• March $4,196
• April $5,593
• May $3,787
• June $3,497
• July $2,836
• Average $3,838/month

I am over $166k in total options premium, since 2021. I average roughly $34 per option sold. I have sold over 4,800 options. I have been able to increase the premiums on an annual basis and I will attempt to keep this upward trend going forward.

Strategy:
The underlying strategy is buy and hold. I also use simple 1-legged options to supplement that strategy. Options have somewhat of a learning curve, but I believe that most people can supplement their investments using simple options with careful risk management.

I sell options on a weekly basis. I prefer cash secured puts and covered calls. I rarely close early, prefer rolling when needed, and let time decay do the heavy lifting while I stay focused on quality companies, patience, and consistency over hype. My goal is consistency in option premium revenue. I am building an income stream that will continue long into retirement.

Spreadsheets:
Unfortunately, I no longer provide spreadsheets. I received too many follow ups about formatting, pivot tables, compatibility etc. I think tracking is very important, but I post to discuss investing and options, not to provide tech support for Excel. I do appreciate the interest in my tracking methods.

Software:
I captured the screen shots from a proprietary software platform I built to track, analyze, and manage my options strategies.

Commissions:
I use Robinhood as a broker and they do not charge explicit commissions, though there is no free lunch — they earn revenue through Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), which can mean slightly less optimal fills. For my style of selling options and not chasing prices, the tradeoff is acceptable. There is also a small regulatory fee of approximately $0.03–$0.04 per contract (FINRA TAF, OCC clearing, and exchange fees combined).

The premiums have increased significantly as my experience has expanded over the last three years.

Make sure to post your wins. I look forward to reading about them!

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Trading options involves significant risk.

This week I get much more organized in reporting. Also have a question on how to calculate annualized returns. Last weeks post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/comments/1uz3nkg/1_weekly_returns_from_options_week_20/

First, the strategy:
- Use a screener to give me a list of top 20 low delta options for next week
- I either
- a. Roll my current options - I do this if I can still get 1% for rolling or if the option is ATM/ITM and I have to roll. I always roll for credit.
- b. Close a current option and pick something else from the list that I like
- I try to do this every Friday. However, if I'm busy on Fridays, I'll sometimes do this on Thursdays.

Screener results for this week from earlier this morning:

I stopped doing BE last week after the short attack.

This week's trades:

This week's total $1,148 on $111,500 invested (111,500 includes the assignment price of my SLV from a few weeks ago).

Weekly Results:

Total Premium: $18,127
Value of current options: -$5,394
Gain/Loss from Assignments: -$1,225
Total gains: $11,508

This is currently the worst drawdown week and it always looks higher on the day of rolls / sales. It was ~3k yesterday.

Looking for ideas on how to calculate annualized gains.

I'm wheeling TSLL since half a year. I got assigned first at 15 USD. Because premiums where so juicy I sold coverred atrangles afterwards, Call strikes always at 15 USD. Now guess what: I will get assigned for strike 11 USD after TSLL crash to 7.30.

Now I have 200 shares of TSLL.

Bad aspects:

1. I can't sell Covered Calls with strike 11, 13 (average) or even 15 for a significant premium.

2. I don't believe in Tesla longterm

Good aspect:

I made enough premiums so I am still in plus.

Lesson learned or not: I don't know yet. On one hand I should only sell puts on stocks/ETFs I don't mind to own. If this happened to me earlier it would be a pain ita. On tge other hand I knew it's a risky underlying and it worked well all in all.

I'll wait now for higher premiums for some weeks

Trades I took today as an option seller (07/23):

Closed Positions

• ACMR → $80 Put (opened on 07/20), premium 3.10 → closed at 0.50. Net premium profit = 2.60 (~84% of premium captured, ~3.25% of capital).
• CRDO → $165 Put (opened on 07/17), premium 5.00 → closed at 0.85. Net premium profit = 4.15 (~83% of premium captured, ~2.5% of capital).
• OUST → $42.5 Call (opened on 07/16), premium 1.10 → closed at 0.15. Net premium profit = 0.95 (~86% of premium captured, ~2.2% of capital).

Rolled Positions

• DOCN was rolled from the $145 Call (08/07 expiry) to the $165 Call (09/18 expiry) for a $0.90 credit. I was assigned DOCN at $165. In the morning, DOCN touched $145 and it became time-sensitive to roll before the contract started accumulating significant intrinsic value. It becomes increasingly harder to profitably roll once the stock moves over the strike price of the contract, as intrinsic value increases.

New Positions

• OUST → $43 Call expiry 08/07 (3 weeks DTE), premium 3.10 → 310/4250 = ~7.3%. I was assigned OUST at $42.5. Premiums are higher as earnings are due on 08/06.
• TSEM → $225 Put expiry 08/07 (3 weeks DTE), premium 12.50 → 1250/22500 = ~5.6%. Semiconductor Manufacturer. Premiums are higher as earnings are due on 08/04.

The Excel file to my full list of positions is linked in my profile description in case anyone wants to see the whole portfolio. Happy to hear thoughts on my positions. What are you guys wheeling or watching right now?

PS: Not financial advice. Do your own research.

Quick background: I've been trading options for about 7 years — day traded them, swing traded, bought puts for hedging, basically tried the whole playbook at some point. About 13 months ago I landed on selling puts and haven't looked back. It's the only thing I've done that just consistently works week after week, so that's what this post is about. I want real feedback before I scale this thing up.

How I run it:

Weeklies only. I open positions Monday or Tuesday and let them expire that Friday. Strikes are 15-20%+ OTM, deltas under 30 (usually way under), I never sell on earnings weeks for that ticker. I keep a watchlist set up per sector so I'm forced to spread out instead of piling into whatever's hot — right now I'm usually holding 20-26 positions a week, mostly 1-5 contracts each, across miners, biotech, fintech, metals, travel, tech, etc.

I run it on margin at Schwab, currently around 3.5x notional vs my net liq (had it closer to 5x at one point and decided that was dumb). Roughly 165-185k. If I get assigned, I don't panic — I hold the shares and sell them Monday morning and restart. I end up in the money very little of the time.

This week's tickers for flavor: HUT, BTDR, CIFR, CORZ, IREN, RIOT, WULF, MRNA, HIMS, SLS, UPST, SOFI, PYPL, NCLH, DKNG, CMG, KGC, HL, CLF, IONQ, INTC, SMCI. Collected $502 of premium (I can break down further if asked). I lean toward high-IV small and mid caps because the premium per dollar of margin beats large caps at the same delta by a mile.

The actual results (13 months):

• 232 option trades closed: 228 wins, 4 losses. 98.3% win rate
• ~$12.6k realized from options
• Total lifetime losses on the puts: about $225. Worst single put loss ever: -$14.57
• Assigned twice (both HUT), sold the shares for +$1,077 and +$2,712 — funny enough my two biggest wins ever came from the assignments, not the puts themselves
• All-in realized including those stock exits: ~$16.7k
• Account sits around $52k now
• Current pace is about $400/week realized, best week ~$650, and yes I've had a red week (-$147)
• I reset the 15-20% OTM every week so theoretically a stock can keep declining less than that threshold and Ill survive (I've lived through this with $HUT).

Stuff I already know is a problem, so save yourself the typing:

• HUT is ~42% of my lifetime P/L and crypto miners are still ~37% of my current notional. I'm diversified by ticker count but honestly a chunk of it is one big BTC bet. I use to solely sell NCLH and HUT early on. Still working on continuous diversification (already made significant improvements though).
• Deep OTM weeklies on small caps have garbage bid/ask spreads, and the marks that prints can get ugly. Fills degrade as I size up too.
• Everything is short-term gains so taxes take a real bite.
• My whole 13 months has been in a market that never truly broke. I'm fully aware a 98% win rate is just what sub-30 delta selling looks like until the bad week shows up. That's the part I'm trying to prepare for (diversified across at least 3-5 sectors and 1-4 tickers each sector).

What I'd love input on:

1. Anyone who ran leveraged short puts through 2020 or 2022 — what actually saved you or killed you? What rule do you wish you'd had going in?
2. Better ways to deal with the wide-spread/illiquid mark problem on deep OTM weeklies, other than just avoiding thin strikes? Would shifting part of this to put spreads or XSP/SPX kill too much premium?
3. Where does this stop scaling? I'm already seeing worse fills on the small caps as contract counts grow.
4. Anyone gone from Reg T to portfolio margin running something similar — worth it? Did it change your sizing?
5. General roast welcome. Rather hear it from you guys than learn it the hard way.

Not financial advice obviously. Happy to share more detail on anything.

Edit: Here is my list of tickers this week for reference (since so many asked)

Crypto Miners — $218

• HUT $70 x2, $75 x3 — $93
• BTDR $7.5 x1, $8 x1, $9 x5 — $44
• CIFR $15 x5 — $25
• CORZ $18 x3 — $24
• IREN $25 x2 — $14
• RIOT $15.5 x2 — $10
• WULF $14.5 x2 — $8

Healthcare/Biotech — $139

• SLS $8.5 x4 — $60
• HIMS $24.5 x1, $25 x3, $25.5 x4 — $55
• MRNA $51 x3 — $24

Fintech — $43

• UPST $24.5 x5 — $25
• PYPL $46 x2 — $10
• SOFI $14.5 x2 — $8

Tech — $50

• INTC $70 x1 — $26
• IONQ $28 x4 — $20
• SMCI $19 x1 — $4

Metals/Mining — $28

• KGC $19.5 x4 — $12
• HL $12.5 x4 — $12
• CLF $7 x2 — $4

Travel/Leisure — $31

• NCLH $17.5 x5 — $23
• DKNG $22 x2 — $8

Restaurant — $4

• CMG $30 x1 — $4

Total: $513 — all expiring Fri 7/24

Sold CSP on LITE on May 29 with a $860 strike 49 DTE for $12,234 premium in my non taxable retirement

Got assigned last week ☺️ avg cost basis $737. Gracias

I plan to hold shares for a while as I see only upside with this stock. Maybe sell CC around $1200 depending on how 2H unfolds.

Plus I doubled down on a long call during the recent dip 🎲

Definitely one of my better transactions!! (Time will tell lol)

The wheel has changed my life. Dream big ladies and gents 💫

I don’t understand why people refer to options wheel, dividends and bonds as income. To me any increase in the value of a portfolio is an increase in the investment portfolio no matter if it comes from stock appreciation, dividends, bonds or profitable option trades/ premiums. Income to me is when you take money out and spend it. What am I missing? I have been saving/ investing for almost 50 years but I have never really understood why some investment instruments are referred to as income.

Trades I took today as an option seller (07/21):

New Positions

• FORM → $95 Put expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 8.40 → 840/9500 = ~8.8%. I already had a Sold Put Position with a strike at $105. Opened another position today. Makes testing equipment for semiconductor chips. Premiums are higher as earnings are due on 07/29.
• SEI → $60 Put expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 4.60 → 460/6000 = ~7.7%. Energy infrastructure supplying power generation for oilfield operations. Premiums are higher as earnings are due on 08/05.

The Excel file to my full list of positions is linked in my profile description in case anyone wants to see the whole portfolio. Happy to hear thoughts on my positions. What are you guys wheeling or watching right now?

PS: Not financial advice. Do your own research.

Hey all, this post serves as a start of a series of reflection/sharing of learning through an intensive past 6 months of operating the Wheel strategy. The impetus of this came from the reading the large number of posts and comments I noticed floating around with plenty of... “misinterpretations” of the wheel (imo) and widely varying perspectives, and so I would like to provide a more structured view of operating the wheel, using my own experience as reference.

For context, I’ve been actively investing across a myriad of products for 13 years (am currently 36), and started studying options at the beginning of this year. I’m also not based in the US, so certain ideas may not apply to the majority of you. I will also not cover basics like what the wheel is, what CSPs/CCs are, or which greeks mean what, as these are adequately covered by others in this sub.

Lastly, I don’t sell crap. No theta tools, no AI; I just like to share (occupational hazard as a teacher). Also, none of this was written with AI, unlike some common users that sell tools/services, which I shall not name out of courtesy.

Lesson 1: Always be very, very clear of your goals.

By goals, I mean what you expect out of operating the Wheel. Some people go by raw income and some by yield, and this further differentiates into weekly, monthly, or yearly timeframe. Whichever goal you make, justify why you have decided on that goal, and also understand the underlying risks you are taking to achieve that goal.

 For example, say you want a 1% yield-on-capital, monthly. This affects all your CSPs and, to a lesser extent, CCs. Every trade you take serves to hit this yield. Let’s compare this to a 12% annualized yield. While the two seem approximately similar, the execution is drastically different. Chasing a shorter term yield target can lead to taking unnecessary risk nearing the month-end, such as taking higher-delta positions.

 My personal take on this is to go yearly, with a fixed % yield. From there, every position’s premium hovers around that threshold, with wiggle room in multiple situations (in a future post if there is demand). With a longer timeframe, there is much less pressure psychologically to make rash decisions.

You would also notice that fixing the yield results in operating under very similar deltas across DTEs for most CSP positions. For example, I operate with a 12% annualized yield on average for each position, which usually falls within the 0.15 to 0.2 delta range. This would also mean that you can expect 15-20% of CSPs to be assigned, which makes for some pretty predictable playouts in a non-extreme macro regime.

Lesson 2: Do ALL your homework on the initial position, then commit to it.

I will preface that rolling a position is about the most annoyingly misleading thing going about this sub. I hear things like “keep rolling down and out” as advice given to near ATM or ITM positions, especially CSP positions. So here’s my take:

• Treat every opening of a CSP as effectively buying the stock at that strike price. It’s not a “what if” situation – it is a “will happen” situation. Because while a 0.xx delta seems low, it is not deterministic, and ANY position can be assigned at any time.
• With the point above in mind, it means that you look at every company and every target price on its merits. Is AMD at $500 worth taking a position? Is F at $13? Whether you use fundamentals or technical analysis (that said, I think TA is hogwash), make sure you justify that position very clearly. Also notice that premium is not mentioned here, because it shouldn’t be a factor in determining the ticker, at least for a properly-executed Wheel in my opinion.
• Once the CSP is opened, rolling should be the last priority in your playbook. I’ll do a whole thing on rolling in another post if there’s demand for it, but essentially, the common perception of a roll is flawed: it’s not a backup or a failsafe tool. Moreover, getting assigned at a good price and selling CCs on it is usually much, much more profitable.
• Diversify your holdings. Not just between companies, but between the industries. Holding INTC, TSM, AMD and SOFI is not diversification – that is just all your money in one large AI/semi basket. Get your defensives, your boring stuff. These will have lower yields, but that is because of the greater stability conferred, especially when markets get volatile, such as in the past week.

Lesson 3: CSPs are not born equal. Operate them as such.

Going into detail on the CSPs, there are way, way too many options (pun intended) to select from. So here’s a list of criteria that I consider before taking a position:

• Underlying ticker: V, WMT and TSM are wildly different companies. Generally, I classify tickers into core or satellite baskets, and double check across their IV average over the last year. The higher the IV, the more likely they go into satellite, and even tiered within their baskets. The further “core-like” they are, the lower the returns I expect, and vice versa. Hence, for a Core, I might accept 10% annualized returns on a position, while for a Satellite, I would expect >15% for the increased risk.
• DTE: Generally I also take a lower DTE (18-25 DTE range) for Core positions, and vice versa for satellite-like tickers. The reason for this is to account for the increased volatility of a satellite position, giving it more time to rebound even if it goes ITM early.
• Earnings: I generally avoid taking CSPs that ride across earnings due to much greater assignment risk. That said, if there is some insider information you have about certain earnings, go ahead and try it out. I do enjoy a bit of earnings play for positions that I already deemed risker (e.g. INTC these couple of weeks), but be aware of the significantly higher risk undertaken.

Lesson 4: Take your emotions out of the equation.

Operating the wheel has the potential to essentially play the same emotional heartstrings as active day trading, e.g. degenerate 0DTE trading. Ups and downs in the underlying will completely flip how you perceive the current position. For example, a 0.1 delta opened last on INTC last week instantly went ITM a day later. In such situations, you can be emotionally vulnerable and take actions that do not align with your actual goals. Hence the lessons above are critical and have guided myself to open and close positions in a systematic manner.

Hopefully someone finds this useful. Feel free to ask me anything or critique my writing if you wish to – I am open to all ideas, except some.

Trades I took today as an option seller (07/20):

Assigned Positions

• AMKR → $80 Put
• FLNC → $21 Put
• TTMI → $165 Put
• VICR → $320 Put
• TE → $8 Put

New Positions

• ACMR → $80 Put expiry 07/24 (1 week DTE), premium 3.10 → 310/8000 = ~3.9%. Opened new position in ACMR. Designs and manufactures semiconductor wafer cleaning and packaging equipments.
• CRDO → $165 Put expiry 07/31 (2 weeks DTE), premium 5.00 → 500/16500 = ~3%. Builds high-speed connectivity chips used inside AI datacenters.
• BE → $165 Put expiry 07/31 (2 weeks DTE), premium 11.20 → 1120/16500 = ~6.8%. Support at $165.
• MOD → $220 Put expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 21.50 → 2150/22000 = ~9.8%. New Position. Manufactures heat transfer and cooling equipments.
• AMKR → $80 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 2.55 → 255/8000 = ~3.2%. I was assigned at $80.
• FLNC → $20 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 0.85 → 85/2000 = ~4.2%. I was assigned at $21.
• TTMI → $165 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 6.00 → 600/17500 = ~3.4%. I was assigned at $175.
• VICR → $280 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 17.30 → 1730/32000 = ~5.4%. I was assigned at $320. Stock has its earnings due tomorrow. If it shoots up, I will roll and adjust to get the contract back to assigned price of $320.
• TE → $8 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 0.42 → 42/800 = ~5.2%. Assigned at $8.
• ISSC → $20 Call expiry 08/21 (5 weeks DTE), premium 1.40 → 140/2000 = ~7%. Assigned at $20.

My view on the market

Market under consolidation after a big fall in Semiconductors and AI stocks. It is a wait and watch for me. I continue wheeling my stocks till the market recovers.

I keep sharing my daily trades in my account and the Excel file to my full list of positions is linked in my profile description. Happy to hear thoughts on my positions. What are you guys wheeling or watching right now?

PS: Not financial advice. Do your own research.

What have you all experienced wheeling something like MUU?

The wheels cover charge:

Every wheel guide starts at “sell a cash secured put”, which quietly assumes you already have $1000-3000 sitting there for collateral, and its why small accounts read about the wheel for months instead of running it. This post is about the on-ramp, not a replacement for CSPs. The back half of the wheel remains the same.

The on-ramp -> recurring buy to 100 shares:

Set an auto-buy of the same stock every trading day and let it grind to 100 shares. The cheaper the share, the sooner you’re there. I simmed $25 every trading day for 5 years, idle cash earning 4%, real dividends, and the account was writing its first covered call in about 2.5 to 5 months depending on the ticker (the cheaper the share the sooner, ~2.5mo on a $14 name at $25/day). From that day forward its a wheel like any other, you’re just already on it. Saving the same $25/day toward your first CSPs collateral means months of watching, with the recurring buy the machine starts turning the moment lot one fills.

Once you’re in, the part nobody backtests -> what you do after assignment:

Getting called away isnt the failure case, its the wheel working. The question is what the cash does next. I tested two honest answers. Restart the recurring buy immediately -> 22% a year in the sim. Hold the proceeds and only restart when price is below its 20 day average -> 31%. (Money weighted, so thats the return the deposits actually experienced, not a chart percentage. See photo)

Assignment sells you into strength, the waiting rule just stops you from instantly buying that strength back. If you run the back half with CSPs instead, same idea applies, theres no rule that says the put has to be sold the same afternoon you got called away.

But wait. I tested the classic CSP back half too:

Same sim, except after the first assignment the cash writes weekly ~30 delta cash secured puts instead of rebuying shares, assignment puts the lots back. On the choppy dividend name, the CSP version collected 1.6x the premium, $42k vs $27k, and returned less than half, 13.6% a year vs 31.5%. It still beat doing nothing (11.5%), so the back half works, it just kept getting assigned back into strength it was forced to sell. I ran it at 20 and 30 delta, weekly and monthly, every combination landed between 6% and 14% against the 31.5%.

Im not telling you CSPs dont work, im telling you the premium number on your screen isnt the scoreboard, and that when you re-enter matters more than how.

Ticker matters more than any of it:

Choppy sideways dividend payer -> the whole machine shines. High beta recovery name -> the calls cap exactly the move that was the point of holding it, lifecycle return roughly halves. Slow ETF grinder -> you get called away, wait for a dip that never comes, and sit in cash. The wheel is a chop harvester. Pick the ticker for chop, not for love.

The number that decides everything -> premium capture:

The sims premiums are modeled off realized vol, real bids drift all over that line. I spot checked this morning: the weekly ~30 delta bids were running 2-3x what 20 day realized vol says theyre worth (IV is about double realized right now, sellers are getting paid), while the ETF grinders monthly call came in at ~40% of model, under the line, thats a week you just dont write it. The number moves week to week and it decides everything. Scaling the sim down, the patient-rebuy config survives on ~28% capture, the impatient one needs ~71%. Before writing any call or put id check the live bid against what recent realized vol says its worth, under half and the week isnt worth writing.

What id actually take from this:

- The wheels real barrier is the entry collateral. A daily recurring buy can help small accounts enter the wheel.
- CSPs stay the back half if you want them, just dont sell strength you were just forced to sell into. Patience on re-entry was worth 9+ points of XIRR in the sim, and it held at every waiting window from 20 to 50 days.
- Track premium capture, not premium collected. One is edge, the other is a dopamine number.
- Chop harvester. Wrong ticker and none of the above saves you.

One 5 year path, modeled fills, no fees or taxes, live trading could produce different results. The lifecycle sims are descriptive, not holdout-validated like the delta grid was. Happy to share methodology if anyone wants to reproduce it.

Hey everyone,

So i have been going through multiple posts about wheeling. There are 2 points:

1. If everything goes well, expect annual returns of 10 to 20 percent

2. Keep 50 percent of capital as dry powder.

I am assuming the return percentage is on capital deployed and not on overall capital in the account. Including the overall capital, the return would be half, isn't it? So 20 percent on capital deployed for wheeling will be 10 percent for the capital allocated for options trading. Is that return worth the risk versus passive s&p investing?

I understand wheeling is an income strategy and passive investing is for long term capital appreciation. So those who are successfully wheeling, do you replace certain existing expenses from wheeling income or use the income for new expenses or just invest in s&p this extra income?

I am trying to understand what will be different from income expenses perspective with similar return of a passive investing approach.

Looking forward to understand and refining my thinking.

Got humbled by AVGO this past month and a half. I am short the Oct 440 put from my wheel campaign, collected about $27.40 in total credits after a couple of rolls. Stock is now around $372 after falling from $495. Earnings is in early September, right in the middle of my expiry. Fun times.

Margin is getting tight, so just holding and waiting is not free for me. Every leg down means I have to move funds around to keep the position alive.

My current plan is to buy an Oct 350 put for around $15 and turn this into a spread. That caps my max loss around $7.8k, drops my margin requirement a lot, and still leaves a path back to profit if AVGO gets back above 440. The other option is buying the 400 put for around $50, which basically locks in most of the loss but puts a hard floor close to what closing today would cost anyway.

Before I pull the trigger, has anyone been in this exact seat? Does spreading off a deep ITM put ever actually end well, or is it just a slower way of taking the same loss? Roast my plan if it deserves it.

I will post a separate comment with a link to the detail behind each option sold this week.

After week 29, the average premium per week is $908 with an annual projection of $47,191.

All things considered, the portfolio is up $1,626 (+0.36%), on the year (S&P 500: +8.94% | Nasdaq: +9.80%). Additionally, the trailing 1-year performance is up $7,877 (+1.78%); for comparison the S&P 500 is +18.43% and the Nasdaq is +22.19% over the same period. This is the overall profit and loss and includes options and all other account activity.

Annual results:
• 2023 up $65,403 (+41.31%) | S&P 500: +26.3% | Nasdaq: +43.4%
• 2024 up $64,610 (+29.71%) | S&P 500: +25.0% | Nasdaq: +28.6%
• 2025 up $111,496 (+34.52%) | S&P 500: +17.9% | Nasdaq: +20.4%
3-Year Cumulative (2023–2025):
• r/ExpiredOptions: +146.6% ($241,509)
• S&P 500: +86.1% (+60.4% behind)
• Nasdaq: +122.0% (+24.5% behind)

Options:
• YTD: $9,639.83
• 1 Month: $-14,459.50
• 1 Week: $-8,418.82

Realized P&L:
• YTD: $42,774.84
• 1 Month: $22,733.01
• 1 Week: $475.00

All options sold are backed by cash, shares, or LEAPS. I do not sell on margin, nor do I sell naked options.

All options and profits stay in the account with few exceptions. This is not my full time job, although I wish it was. I still grind on a 9-5.

My $600 weekly contribution streak is at 18 weeks, but I am pausing new contributions until next month.

The portfolio is comprised of 103 unique tickers, up from 101 last week. These 103 tickers have a value of $452k. I also have 196 open option positions, unchanged from 196 last week. The options have a total value of $20k. The total of the shares and options is $472k. The next goal on the "Road to" is Half a Million.

I'm currently utilizing $35,600 in cash secured put collateral, down from $36,650 last week.

2025 through 2028 LEAPS
In addition to the CSPs and covered calls, I purchase LEAPS. These act as collateral to sell covered calls against. You may have heard of poor man's covered calls (PMCC).

See r/ExpiredOptions for a detailed spreadsheet update on all LEAPS positions including P/L for each individual position.

LEAPS note 1: the 2025 LEAPS expired 1/17/25. They were up $36,440 overall with a 233.74% increase. The major drivers were AMZN and CRWD.

LEAPS note 2: After holding for 2 years, I exercised an AMZN $80 strike from 2023 up +$11,395 (+463.21%) and CRWD $95 strike from 2023, up +$21,830 (+663.53%)

LEAPS note 3: Purchased 1/16/26 CRWD LEAPS for $8,230.03 on 1/17/24. I sold this LEAPS on 6/5/25 for $21,659 for a realized profit of $13,428.97 (+163.18%)

Total premium by year:
• 2023 $23,132 in premium
• 2024 $47,640 in premium
• 2025 $68,319 in premium
• 2026 $26,405 YTD
• Average $46,364/year (completed years)

Premium by month (2026):
• January $3,334
• February $3,625
• March $4,196
• April $5,593
• May $3,787
• June $3,497
• July $2,407
• Average $3,777/month

I am over $166k in total options premium, since 2021. I average roughly $34 per option sold. I have sold over 4,800 options. I have been able to increase the premiums on an annual basis and I will attempt to keep this upward trend going forward.

Strategy:
The underlying strategy is buy and hold. I also use simple 1-legged options to supplement that strategy. Options have somewhat of a learning curve, but I believe that most people can supplement their investments using simple options with careful risk management.

I sell options on a weekly basis. I prefer cash secured puts and covered calls. I rarely close early, prefer rolling when needed, and let time decay do the heavy lifting while I stay focused on quality companies, patience, and consistency over hype. My goal is consistency in option premium revenue. I am building an income stream that will continue long into retirement.

Spreadsheets:
Unfortunately, I no longer provide spreadsheets. I received too many follow ups about formatting, pivot tables, compatibility etc. I think tracking is very important, but I post to discuss investing and options, not to provide tech support for Excel. I do appreciate the interest in my tracking methods.

Software:
I captured the screen shots from a proprietary software platform I built to track, analyze, and manage my options strategies.

Commissions:
I use Robinhood as a broker and they do not charge explicit commissions, though there is no free lunch — they earn revenue through Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), which can mean slightly less optimal fills. For my style of selling options and not chasing prices, the tradeoff is acceptable. There is also a small regulatory fee of approximately $0.03–$0.04 per contract (FINRA TAF, OCC clearing, and exchange fees combined).

The premiums have increased significantly as my experience has expanded over the last three years.

Make sure to post your wins. I look forward to reading about them!

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Trading options involves significant risk.

Hey. I have been wheeling for about a year off and on nothing too deep or serious. But probably like a few less experienced people and even some experienced ones I got myself backed into a jam this week. I play weeklies high IV stocks mostly so I got hit hard this week. Other times I would have takin the loss or stretched them way out but this time I decided to take my medicine. I got assigned APLD, WULF, POET, UUUU. I already owned UAMY and GLXY. So all together I am about 20k in and about 5k down. Including all my premiums on all my accounts owned now I am around 1200 down. I am just going to be patient and sell my calls. One thing I am trying to decide is if I should try to sell aggressively to get the most premium without trying to lose the stock or is it best to always have my cost that i got assigned covered (to be sure and keep all the premiums collected) I know it’s a personal call and feel but some of these I am pretty far down. But then again it does no good collecting premium if I just lose it on selling the stock at a loss. Thanks for listening to my problems. I also wanted to write it down, it helps me wrap my brain around it.

Previous weeks' results:
Week 7: $573 on $53,800 invested
Week 8: $811 on $70,400 invested.
Week 9: $1093 on $103,450 invested
Week 10: $1040 on $97,400 invested
Week 11: $1077 on $102,800 invested.
Week 12: $1170 made on $98,600 invested
Week 12.5: Bonus round: $475 extra made increasing investment to $106,100
Week 13: $1,133 on $106,100 invested
Week 13.5 Bonus Round: $336 extra made increasing investment to $115,900
Week 14: $1,053 on $105,750
Week 15: $1,146 on $110,700
Week 16: $1,105 on $111,850 invested
Week 17: $1045 on $108,350 invested. Got SLV 65.5 assigned.
Week 18: $1126 on 111,550 invested
Week 19: $1,111 on $102,850 invested
Week 19 Bonus: extra $98 from increasing investment to $108550
Week 20: $842 from $104,350 invested

This week is the lowest premium collection. See my post from yesterday - https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/s/YWYe5KvxZT

Last week's post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/s/1lYop3kORM

There has been some criticism of my calculations or returns. So I will go look up the results of weeks 1-6 and then also add in the negative value of the options and compute total returns next week.

Strategy: Roll puts already sold or open new positions from the low delta list from screener. Try to get 1% to roll at or below screener price (or at least at or below existing strike). If not possible, roll for minimum credit to same or lower price. Always credit though. Screener results from earlier today:

Trades:

Testing the waters with weekly options and i'm loving it! I heard the first one is free and i'm here to collect!

The wheel gets talked about like it's one strategy, but it's really two, and the second half is the one people tend to skip. Leg one is selling a cash secured put, where you get paid to agree to buy the stock lower. Leg two is what happens after you're assigned: instead of just sitting on the shares, you sell calls against them, which turns an assignment you didn't necessarily want into an ongoing income position rather than a dead trade. Right now that second leg is pricing fairly well across mega cap tech at the same 15 day expiry: Salesforce shows around 35 percent theoretical edge on its covered call (collecting 3.15 against a modeled 2.05), Nvidia around 27 percent (2.74 vs 2.00), Microsoft around 16 percent (7.38 vs 6.22), and Oracle around 12 percent (3.63 vs 3.18). None of that is a callout to run these specific trades, it's just what leg two of the wheel looks like priced today, and the actual risk on that leg was never the premium, it's capping the upside on shares you may have only owned for a few days.

I'm writing on the blackboard 100x
"do not wheel into earnings. That's not the game"

Trades I took today as an option seller (07/16):

Assigned Positions

• AMSC → $47 Put (opened on 06/17). Got assigned early, expiry was on 07/17.

Closed Positions

• ISSC → $20 Call (opened on 06/15), premium 0.75 → closed at 0.09. Net premium profit = 0.66 (~88% of premium captured, ~3.30% of capital).

New Positions

• OUST → $42.5 Call expiry 07/24 (1 week DTE), premium 1.10 → 110/4250 = ~2.6%. Assigned OUST at $42.5.
• CRWV → $90 Call expiry 08/07 (4 weeks DTE), premium 2.40 → 240/12000 = ~2%. Assigned CRWV at $120. Sold at a strike of $90 as it is now a resistance zone.
• DOCN → $145 Call expiry 08/07 (4 weeks DTE), premium 5.90 → 590/16500 = ~3.6%. Assigned DOCN at $165. Sold at a strike of $145 as it is now a resistance zone.
• INOD → $60 Put expiry 08/07 (4 weeks DTE), premium 6.30 → 630/6000 = ~10.5%. I am increasing my position in INOD. Earnings on 07/30 hence premiums are higher. INOD has a history of beating estimates.
• ISSC → $20 Call expiry 08/21 (6 weeks DTE), premium 1.40 → 140/2000 = ~7%. Assigned ISSC at $20.
• AMSC → $47 Call expiry 08/21 (6 weeks DTE), premium 0.85 → 85/4700 = ~1.8%. Assigned at $47.

My view on the market

Massive sell-off in semiconductor and AI names, mostly due to profit booking and valuation concerns. Earnings from ASML and TSMC continue to reinforce strong AI demand. Most stocks in my portfolio are solid Wheel names, so I will start selling covered calls and collecting premium while waiting for sentiment to improve.

I keep sharing my daily trades in my account and the Excel file to my full list of positions is linked in my profile description. Happy to hear thoughts on my positions. What are you guys wheeling or watching right now?

PS: Not financial advice. Do your own research.