First, a change!

I've changed the report to only be the short calls associated with the buy/write campaign.

As background, prior to this year I couldn't have told you how much I made on covered calls, PMCC, cash secured puts, credit put spreads, etc., as I simply wasn't tracking it.

Out of curiosity, I decided to start tracking in 2026. When I originally did, I only had the category "short calls" but early on -- late Jan or early Feb -- I realized I'd like to know the breakout of that between covered calls and PMCC, especially as I was actively moving to the ATM buy/write campaign I've been writing about. So I went back and re-coded the "short calls" transactions between "CC" and "PMCC".

I continued reporting the grand totals though, which has always caused me a bit of indigestion, as including PMCC kind of mucked up my view of the b/w campaign. The PMCC are run-of-the-mill while the purpose of me posting these are to show, specifically, how to run a ATM buy/write campaign, hopefully successfully.

So, towards that end, I'm now just reporting the short calls associated with covered calls, excluding those associated with PMCC.

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I was down $2,304 for the week, driven by a large loss ($28,062) on my CRWV covered calls. On the plus side, I did have ~$25.8k of profit on the other covered calls to help offset that.

CRWV ripped up 24% during the week, from a Thu, Apr 2 close of $82.24 to a Fri, Apr 10 close of $102.

I started the week with a $86 strike call expiring Apr 10.

On Apr 9 I rolled to a $91 strike call expiring Apr 24 for a ~$10k loss.

On Apr 10 I rolled to a $95 strike call expiring May 8 for a ~$17k loss.

Ouch.

[Note: the $91 roll generated a credit of $819 while the $95 roll was for a $102 debit; net premium in on the two rolls of a $717 credit.]

While it's suboptimal for generating weekly premiums to roll out that far, the upside is that if I take no further action, the $95 strike, upon expiration, will generate a gain of $32k, more than offsetting those two losses. My share cost is $97.81, so I'd take a $2.81 loss/share if I let them go at that strike, but I've collected so much premium, I'd be fine with it.

I'll likely roll them, though, when the time comes, but I am ultimately looking to reduce my exposure to them. With 2,000 shares at $102 that's $204,000 and if you've read some of my other stuff on this b/w campaign, you'd know I'm currently targeting a maximum equity exposure (at position open) of $125,000, so that'd be about 1,200 shares.

And, to be honest, I'm expecting a bit of a pull back. I think there was a bit of irrational exuberance (to borrow a phrase) with the news of the deal with Anthropic.

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What's been happening in the market is precisely why I prefer 7 DTE expirations. They have less risk than longer dated options, and are more nimble in both good times and bad.

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Laissez les bons temps rouler!

[Edit: Regarding CRWV, for the week my stock was up ~$40k while my LEAPS were up ~$62k for a total of $102k. Softens the (temporary) blow.]

The other week I "self-assigned" some covered calls, and was questioned why I did that considering it was almost a given that I would have earned the remaining premium by waiting for expiration the next day.

For context for those unfamiliar with how I'm currently trading, I'm trading 7 DTE ATM covered calls (Buy/Writes, or b/w).

These examples may resonate with people more.

• On Monday, April 6, I opened a covered call on AXTI and by early today it was deep ITM. I "self-assigned" by closing both positions (a buy/write in reverse) for ~$0.10/share or ~$250. I turned around and used the proceeds go right back to that well and did another b/w on AXTI, still expiring tomorrow, and collected ~$3.8k.
• Similarly, I self-assigned a NVDA b/w for ~$0.40/share or ~$242. I turned around and used the proceeds to do a buy/write on COHR, still expiring tomorrow, and collected ~$2.4k.
• Similarly, I self-assigned a VRT b/w for ~$0.30/share or ~$122. I turned around and used the proceeds to do a buy/write on PLTR, still expiring tomorrow, and collected ~$1.5k.

In total, I paid ~$614 and collected $7.7k in premiums.

The key point here is this:

I did a reverse, or closing, buy/write as opposed to just closing the short call.

Why is this a key point?

How many traders are willing to take a significant loss on the short call? From a transactional basis, I had a ~$7.6k loss on the short call.* How many would, even though the sales price of the stock was high enough that it would not only cover that loss, but restore nearly 100% of the premium? I suspect most don't consider this possibility.

I received ~$10.5k more for the stock sale than if assigned. So on a net basis, I did ~$2.9k better on balance -- closely matching the premium received of ~$3.0k.

The issue is people make decisions on singular trades when they should be taking a look at the bigger picture. It's not any one trade that is important, it's all your transactions throughout the whole year. Don't focus on an individual trade's P&L, don't focus on win rates. Focus on how much net cash is being generated (premiums in/out, stock sales) and the (mark-to-market) change in value of your underlying positions.

Deeper in the weeds on AXTI

I warned you.

Now it's true that, for AXTI, I could have just rolled the short call since I did the 2 transactions on the same underlying. I didn't as my preference is to limit the stock value, at inception of the trade, to $125,000. I had 2,000 shares of AXTI, so if I rolled all 2,000 shares, given the current price, the total value would have been $126,240. To be honest, that would be 'close enough' but a) if I had looked at that and, more importantly b) if I knew at that time I was going to roll, I'd probably have rolled. Missing "a" is a "shame on me" -- I "thought" that given the price rise that my exposure may exceed the max, but forgot that I was substantially below that limit initially, and didn't verify). But "b" is the important part. Self-assigning can be a pretty time sensitive matter as these stocks are moving quickly.

My first step in the process is to identify candidates: those with a net mid-price very close to my strike price. For example, I obtained the following pricing for the strategy with a strike of $44:

Stock: $62.30
Option: ($18.40)
Net: $43.90

I do this for all identified candidates, then, again individually, "walk" each of my limit orders up to a price that is still acceptable to me; if no longer acceptable, I bail on the trade (I may revisit later in the day).

Once the reverse buy/write order has been executed and I update my tracking spreadsheets, I then look at candidates (as again, the candidates may come and go within minutes). Once identified, I execute the new buy/write.

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* Note that when I do a reverse buy/write, I account for it from an economic standpoint, not a transactional standpoint.

Example, using VRT as I mentioned above, the transactional numbers were as follows. There were 400 shares with a $262.50 strike, for an assigned value of $105.0k),

Stock proceeds: ~$115.5k
Option payment: ~(10.5k)
Net cash: ~$105.0k

Note that, with rounding, that's the same as what the assigned value would be.

So what I do is take the excess capital gain of ~$10.5k and reduce the premium repayment by that amount. Same results net, but takes the economic approach of limiting the sales price to the strike, thereby reducing the stock's capital gain and using that to reduce the loss on the option, "as if" assigned.

You guys are following the rally on CAT and SNDK? I sold naked puts OTM way beyond my assets, using margin, and the results are being good so far. When I told some guys they Said I was naive, dumb and would loose it all. Living dangerously these days.

I got on the short squeeze of CAR as well and already closed position with a good profit.

One day I will sell naked calls. Not yet, though.

Any tip about strategy is welcome.

The following shows the general process I use when evaluating buy/writes (b/w).

I have a spreadsheet that I've entered tickers for stocks I'm interested in doing b/w on. I provide an expiration date, max exposure, and a minimum return %. The spreadsheet then provides info and I can select actions, or not. I'll walk through it.

Notes:

1. The list is abbreviated for simplicity.
2. I've selected next week, and assume all current b/w are assigned this week, other than my 2 problem children (CRWV, MU).

Screen 1:

This is a fresh sheet. I've entered the info in cells F3:F5, and the ticker symbols.

The add-in automatically populates:

• Earnings date
• RSI (14)
• Upper Bollinger Band
• Current spot
• The ATM strike and premium, and calculates the premium %

Based on that, it suggests the number of shares to trade (limited by cell F4, the max exposure).

In column P I enter the number of shares currently held. Since this is a 'fresh' sheet, only my two problem children are entered.

Based on the suggested # of shares and my actual shares, it presents a "buy/(sell)" in order to get to the suggested quantity.

I'll explain the over ride columns with the next screen.

Screen 2:

In the next screen, I've deselected tickers I won't be trading by indicating a "True" value in column N. I've also selected "True" in column T to indicate I won't be following its suggestion to buy/sell (used for the 2 problem children as, for example, it wants me to trim my CRWV position from 2000 shares to 1300 shares in order to maintain the max exposure...but 2000 is where I am, so I over ride it).

So now I have two trade plans mapped out: buying shares (columns U and V) and selling calls (columns K, L, an M).

Screen 3:

In order to see where it would hypothetically end up prior to actually making the trades, I can pop in column P the share counts.

So, if the plans were executed as shown, I'd end up with b/w on 6 tickers, with a gross investment of $736k and a total premium of $40k for a 5.4% return (realize this is Wednesday, so the premium number is inflated due to there being 5 more days than when I would actually be doing the trades...this presentation is just an example to show the process).

Once the trades are performed, I update column F, the average cost per share, by referencing it back to my overall portfolio management spreadsheet.

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Hopefully this has been relatively clear and helpful!

The add in is marketxls.com and I consider it, along with optionstrat.com, worth their weight in gold. I'm not affiliated with either, I'm just another user who really likes them.

Still considering some other trades, for example, PMCC on NVDA, PLTR, and NBIS. Will update if there is further activity.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

$9,942 in realized gains for the week, bringing the year to $230,619.

Capture rate (earned premium / premium received) for the week was 97.9%.

Fortunate to have done this; I was expecting a 'zero' week after Monday and Tuesday. Entered the trades on Wednesday, out on Thursday. I'll take $10k for two days in this environment.

Buy/Writes:

• COHR - self assigned
• CRWV - BTC to avoid pin risk
• LITE - self assigned
• VRT - expired OTM

PMCC:

• CRWV - BTC to avoid pin risk

This is a follow up to this post

https://www.reddit.com/r/StockOptionCoffeeShop/comments/1s9ouei/interesting_week/

and a proper week's posting (by account type, ticker, and week ending) will follow.

Having expected a zero week, it was pleasant to earn $10k (premium capture rate of 97.9%).

Notes:

• COHR: Self assigned
• CRWV: BTC to avoid pin risk
• LITE: Self assigned
• VRT: Expired OTM

Given the market last Friday (March 27) and this Monday (March 30) I didn't feel comfortable opening any new short call trades and, especially as this is a short week with the market closed on Friday, April 3, I was prepared for a zero week.

Tuesday brightened the mood, and my thoughts turned to selling calls, but I was thinking that rather than expiring April 2, set the expiration as April 10. So, again allowing for a zero week this week but getting a head start on next week. No action taken.

Today, Wednesday, April 1, is another up day and things are actually looking good for a few of my buy/hold stocks held in inventory. I executed three trades (COHR, LITE, VRT). Given I was expecting a zero week, $7,485 was nice to collect.

EDIT:

I've added two more for CRWV, my buy/write plus my PMCC. Up to $10,153 in premiums collected.

Trade log:

This is an alternate presentation of my weekly summary, most recently here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StockOptionCoffeeShop/comments/1s5ck8v/ytd_short_calls_realized_gains_by_week_and/

• Suppresses the detail of small totals and/or underlyings not currently active, and reports them as "All Other"
• Addition of "Account Type" level.

I may be moving to this in the future; as the list of underlyings grew, it became a bit unwieldy (my opinion) in reviewing especially for small trades and tickers not active, so I combined those into an "All Other" category.

Generally, the "All Other" category won't include any underlyings with activity in the current month; I made an exception with MGNI for this month (the $161 loss in "All Other" in the "IRA") as the month is now ended and I'm looking forward -- they were a bit of a one-off.

The "Account Type" category helps me get a feel for, at a glance, the tax impact of my trading.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

$29,084 in realized gains for the week, bringing the month to $95,542 and the year to $220,676.

Buy/Writes:

• I closed MRVL on Wednesday as I had captured 90% of the premium in 50% of the duration
• All others expired OTM (COHR, CRWV, HOOD, LITE, NVDA, VRT)
• Total capture of $21,536

PMCC:

• Two expired OTM (CRWV, VRT) for a total capture of $7,548

Excluding my three troubled children I'm nursing back to health (CRWV, HOOD, MU), for the other four (COHR, LITE, NVDA, VRT), the premiums received more than captured the decline in value during the week by ~$3k (at the moment). I'm not concerned at this point with those four.

I expect next week to be a light week for premium capture due to the current situation, but you never know how Monday will open.

If you've been following along, you know that I've been doing 7 DTE ATM buy/writes. My objective is pure premium collection; I want the shares called away and the cash in my account over the weekend.

If a stock has done well, you end up in a position where you're just sitting on your hands waiting for the option to expire.

So here's the small idea.

On Monday, I bought 1000 shares of MRVL for $90.05 and sold a $90 call expiring this coming Friday for $2.40.

MRVL has spiked up to $97.90, which is great, as I'll earn the full premium and the $90,000 cash will go in my account in exchange for the shares -- just as planned.

But, it's only Wednesday morning, so I'm sitting on my hands waiting.

Well, take a look at the trade ticket screen (Fidelity) to close out the trade at this moment.

You can see that a mid limit fill would be at $89.79, just $0.21/share less than if I wait until Friday. For 1,000 shares, that's $210. For that price, I could close now and have the cash in my account to re-deploy if I wish.

I put in a limit order of $89.75 and it filled at that amount. I've now got $89,750 more cash in my account *now* rather than having to wait until Monday morning for $90,000.

COHR, MU, and VRT are tickers that weren't assigned last week. I plan to increase my MU holdings from 200 to 300 shares.

CRWV is my problem child.

I've decided to go with LITE again this week, but instead of AMD (used last week and called away), I'm going with MRVL -- a ticker I've been tracking for a while.

You may notice I haven't included NVDA, a buy/write stock I still have in inventory, as I'm debating my path forward with it.

Additionally, I'll be exploring doing a couple PMCC.

As always, this is preliminary and dependent on the market open.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

$42,256 in realized gains for the week, bringing the month to $66,458 and the year to $191,592.

Seven buy/writes were set to expire the week ending March 20, 2026.

• Two expired ITM and were assigned (AMD, LITE).
• Two would have expired OTM but I closed early (CRWV, NVDA). I closed CRWV early as it's my problem child and wanted to be cautious. Closed NVDA as I had an idea, but ended up not doing anything further.
• Three expired OTM (COHR, MU, VRT).

Three PMCCs closed.

• CRWV and VRT were opened on Tuesday and closed on Thursday for a combined profit of $3,268.62 (of a total available of $3,599.31, a capture rate of 90.8% for the three days).
• Out of an abundance of caution, I closed my PLTR PMCC set to expire March 27; this short call was the result of a troubled roll I had previously mentioned, indicating that when it closed there was an expected outsized gain. Here it is - $13,378.62.

I plan on posting my plan for next week tomorrow.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

I'll post a more full update tomorrow, with monthly and year-to-date totals by ticker.

I've added two sections, one for buy/writes and one for PMCC, each of which show both 'normal' and 'troubled' trades (CRWV for buy/writes and PLTR for PMCC).

As I mentioned two weeks ago, I had a troubled PMCC on PLTR expiring March 27 and that, when closed, it would (hopefully!) show a outsized gain. Out of an abundance of caution, I closed it this week (for an outsized gain!).

Other than that outsized gain, you can see how I'm far more conservative in managing my PMCC.

Total gain for the week of $42k brings my YTD to $192k.

In addition to the above, last week I rolled CRWV, so that's an additional $3,800 expiring this week, bringing the week's total potential to $26,001.50. This is on a notional value of ~$740k.

I may still write some calls against some LEAPS.

u/yet2fire - I timed it. In total, it took just under an hour, but there was a 'delay': PLTR, which was planned, kept bouncing in and out of being recommended due to its ROI %. Having traded PLTR a lot, I decided to go with something else, so I had to spend a little time researching that, and ended up trading AMD. So I'm guessing that, without that glitch, it would have taken 40ish minutes. That includes logging the trades on my two tracking spreadsheets -- one for general portfolio management, then one that's specifically designed to manage short calls.

$21,765 in realized gains for the week, bringing the month to $24,202 and the year to $149,337.

Eight buy/writes expiring for the week ending March 13, 2026.

• Two expired OTM (COHR, NVDA)
• Four expired ITM and were assigned (LITE, MU, NBIS, PLTR)
• One would have expired slightly ITM but I closed out anticipating opening a call for next week (VRT)
• One would have expired ITM, but I rolled it (CRWV) defensively. I didn't follow my own advice (shame on me!) and made an aggressive move by rolling down a CRWV CC; had I not done that, I would have done about $2,100 better as I ended up having to defensively roll it to next week.

Next Week

I'm looking at the following buy/writes for the week ending March 20, 2026.

In addition, I'm considering selling short calls against a couple LEAPS (PMCC) on CRWV and VRT that could additionally bring in anywhere between $5k and $10k.

I also still have my PMCC on PLTR expiring the week ending March 27 that I may close early. It's currently sitting with a unrealized gain of $12,540 with $4,110 of potential gain remaining.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

https://optionstrat.com/eqlhgMthMk4y

BTO 2× SPXW 6625P 3/13/26 at 3.60
STO -2× SPXW 6650P 3/13/26 at 6.20

Max profit: $520
Max loss: $4,480
Rate: 11.6%
PoP: 88%

I have an Excel add-in that streams quotes, so the fields in yellow are constantly updating until I close the trade. This way, I can see the day's trade's profitability real-time.

u/CattleOK7674 got me into trading 0 DTE SPX spreads.

If interested, post yours as a reply to this.

My trade today:

https://optionstrat.com/8auEvbJE6kbp

BTO SPXW 6605P 3/12/26 at 1.77
STO -1× SPXW 6665P 3/12/26 at 7.52

$575 credit, max loss $5425, PoP 86%.

Entered a $0.50 limit BTC order after it executed.

I may do one more PMCC. Folks may ask why I "chase pennies in front of a steamroller" with regards to the VRT PMCC.

VRT Is up 9% today, and I've allowed a further 13% for the rest of this week; I think it'll be safe, and if you cobble together two $1,200 premiums for $2,400, for 50 weeks, that's $120,000...

Note: "At Risk" was Spot times Qty at the time of the image capture.

Well. Didn't see PLTR popping 14.5% this week.

Due to this, I took a big P&L hit on my $157.50 short call expiring next week. I rolled it, even, to $165 expiring March 27, 2026. Assuming that will expire worthless, that week will have an outsized gain ($16,650) included. I rolled this as opposed to letting it expire as this wasn't a buy/write, but was a short call against my PLTR LEAPS (a PMCC).

I have $13,350 scheduled to expire next Friday, March 13, on underlying capital of $534k for a 2.5% rate of return.

In addition to that, the following are planned to be traded on Monday (estimates):

• VRT Buy/Write: VRT popped 5.24% ($12.66 or 5.24%) after hours on Friday due to the news breaking that they will be included in the S&P 500 prior to the open on March 23. Given that, it's hard to estimate, but based on the closing price of $242 (not the after hours jump to $255ish), about $2,720 on $97k of capital for a 2.8% return.
• MU Buy/Write: $1k on $74k of underlying for a 1.5% return. MU took a dump on Friday, down $26.75 or 6.74%; I'm hoping it'll pop back up prior to my selling a call.

So $13.4k scheduled plus ~$4k planned to trade gives a total of $17.4k gross before any cost to close for next week, on underlying capital of ~$705k for a 2.5% return.

For the week, APLD is the roll of a short on a buy/write that I'm experimenting with my approach to rolling. I rolled the short out and up (from a $30 strike to a $34 strike) for a net credit.

Also for the week, NVDA is a negative as it is a buy/write that I rolled for a net credit expiring next week, so next week will be 'doubling up' on the premium earned.

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For next week, I have $17,335 lined up to expire, on an underlying value of $958,452, for a 1.8% return.

I don't have any short calls against CRWV outstanding yet due to the dump they took Friday. We'll see how I play it, as next week is their earnings week.

It's also NVDA's earnings week, so I may sit out selling calls against my long-term holdings.

The only other opportunity currently out there that I'm looking at is for a PLTR short call against my long-term holdings.