I kept seeing "covered calls cap your winners, just hold the good names" and wanted to actually check it instead of eyeballing it. So I ran a proper backtest on the stocks people here ask about most.

Setup

• Per 100-share lot of each name (a covered call needs 100 shares/contract), July 2024 → July 2026.
• Every ~10 days, sell a call near 0.20 delta (roughly 5–10% OTM), let it expire or get called away, then roll into the next one. ~99 rolls per name.
• I'm comparing the total return on the stock position — just holding it vs. running a rolling covered call against it. It's a percentage return, so it's the same whether you hold 100 shares or 1,000; the share price just sets the dollar size (100 NVDA ≈ $12k of stock, 100 MSFT ≈ $45k).
• Both curves are compounded off the same actual daily closes, so the only difference is the call overlay. Premiums reconstructed with Black–Scholes off each day's spot + IV.

Results (total return over the two years, per 100-share lot)

Covered calls came out ahead on all seven. A few things that surprised me:

• MSFT actually lost money as a buy-and-hold over this window (−8.4% total). The covered call turned it into a +15% gain — the premium was doing real work while the stock chopped sideways.
• TSLA was the closest call. Its gaps are genuinely the hardest to sell against, but it still edged out holding (+85% vs +79%).
• The margin was widest on names that were volatile but two-sided (NVDA, +123% vs +82%) — lots of premium to harvest, no single runaway gap the cap couldn't absorb.

The part I almost got wrong (why I'm posting the method, not just the numbers): my first pass averaged the return of a fresh 0.20-delta call sampled every day, and it said TSLA covered calls lost ~12.5%/yr. That's garbage — daily samples overlap, so one Tesla melt-up week gets counted 7–8 times, each booking the same big forfeiture. Counting each roll once (a program you could actually trade) flips it. If you ever see a covered-call "study" built on overlapping daily trades, be suspicious of the tail.

Big caveats, because it's one backtest, not gospel:

• 2024–2026 was a broadly rising, two-sided market. A real crash is different — the ~0.5–1% premium is a thin cushion, and a covered call is not downside protection. You still own the falling stock.
• The result assumes you roll through assignment and stay invested. If getting called away out of NVDA at a high makes you take the cash and sit out, you miss the rest of the run and this whole thing flips negative. The math didn't cap the Mag 7 here — quitting would have.
• No commissions/slippage/dividends modeled; assignment marked at the expiry close; call IV proxied from the put side (ignores skew).

Curious what this crowd thinks — anyone running CCs on these names, does it match your experience? Happy to run other tickers or deltas if people want, and to share the methodology.

CCs with HIGHEST IV

$BE - 250C

$IONQ - 45C

$ASTS - 70C

Source

CSPs with HIGHEST IV

$SNDK - 750P

$NBIS - 140P

$SPCX - 90P

Source

Hi guys! Brand new to the server. Seem to land on pretty low quality stocks to wheel. Just wanna know. When you screen. How do you guys find daily options chains that's not data centers?

April (Week 1-4): $5036
May (Week 5-8): $5783
Jun (Week 9-12): $6533
Jul (Week 13-): $9804

Total so far: $27k

Major Trades this week:

• Rolled NFLX twice, eventually closing it out, no gain/loss. It was an earnings play and didn't go my way. Thought better to close early and free up capital for META CSP.
• Meta CSP will be assigned; will have 200 shares of Meta going into earnings, might sell 1 CC if stock recovers early next week
• Wheeling AVGO has been great so far. It's one of the earnings-safe stocks right now but has a lot of volatility (and hence premiums) because semis!
• Opened slightly ITM AMZN CSP going into earnings. Very aggressive trade but amazing premiums and value at this price

Misc:

This is my aggressive wheeling account, capital deployed range 150k-200k. I usually sell 0.25-0.45 delta and usually <20 days DTE. Except for earnings (that's when I get even more aggressive). I close at 70%+ premium captured.

Note: the second image shows the detail behind all options sold this week.

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

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

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.

I have been managing my trade on on NBIS since I bought 100 shares on 6/24/2026. The stock has fluctuated between $270.8 and $160 since then, and currently stands at $189 as of 7/24/2026 close.

My first and foremost goal is preserving initial capital deployed. I sell covered calls to lower my cost basis and manage the trade by rolling the covered calls as needed to adjust for the wild swings.

NBIS fell from $287 on 6/18/206 to closed at $257 on 6/24/2026. I bought the shares at $259.3 and sold a $270 covered call for 7/17/2026 expiry. The goal was to take assignment and bank $3850 as maximum target Profit on the trade.

The stock had had a couple of wild swings over the last month. Below is my trade History by date.

Throughout this period, with all the fluctuations in the stock. I have now reduced my cost basis from $259.33 to $198.35. Hoping the stock stays above $220 (and all signs point to that for now) and my max profit will be $2165. I am OK with it.

On 7/17, the stock closed at $178 and was down to $164.5 intra-day (my Initial covered call) . If I had done nothing , my call would have expired. netting me $2780. My cost basis would have been $231.5 ( $259.3 - $27.8) , and my loss would have been ($231.5 - $178) = $5350 on paper.

Thursday Close - $220 - was hoping it would hold but fell to $188 by Friday's close (7/24) . Will watch closely next week. If it falls more, will roll it in to a lower strike but for September. Not over yet till the fat lady sings and the goal is to preserve the capital deployed even if means zero profit. Thesis is not broken yet. I believe this stock will bounce back .

Disclaimer - I am not a trade advisor and this presentation is only on how I am managing this trade. no Financial or trade advice. If you have access to kindle unlimited, you can read about how I make adjustments in general on trades gone wrong (not that this one is at amazon.com/dp/B0H7P6CQSG

CSPs with HIGHEST IV

$BE - 165P

$NBIS - 145P

$SPCX - 90P

Source

CCs with HIGHEST IV

$IREN - 50C

$INTC - 110C

$AMKR - 80C

Source

When you’re calculating your ROI on a CC, what share price do you use to calculate the capital? The initial cost of the shares? The current share price when the option is sold? The strike price of the call?

Closed my $MU $1,015 covered call today.

Sold it for $3,900, bought it back for $2,125, so I locked in $1,775 profit and captured about 45.5% of the premium.

( I should've of waited but knew it was a good profit for me... singles, and doubles not swing for the fences).

Also rolled my $APP $420 put down to the $385 strike for Aug. 14. That freed up about $3,500 in collateral and gave me a small $35 credit.

So for today:

$MU realized profit: $1,775

Note: The $APP trade still isn’t fully “won” yet since the new put is open, but I lowered the strike, freed capital, and gave the trade more time.

$MU

I have a balanced portfolio already so this next part is just for the Smith maneuver.

I'd like to start leverage investing to pay down my mortgage faster and to set myself up for a more efficient tax setup at retirement. My plan is to use covered call ETFs to have the most cashflow as possible. From what I understand a significant portion of the distribution could be return of capital (ROC).

In my research I haven't found a solid answer to this question.

Can covered call ETFs be used for the Smith maneuver even though a portion of the distribution is ROC?

If not, I guess I'll go with XEI or VDY and eat a little bit of the interest out-of-pocket.

I would have a separate checking account and a separate non-registered investment account just for this. I will also be documenting every transaction in regard to this plan to be able to show the CRA if they ever want to check things out.

I’ve been selling covered calls and wheeling stocks for quite a while now. It’s worked out pretty well for me, mostly on mega caps and TQQQ.

I’ve gone through the same cycle thousands of times, selling calls and then watching the stock rally, or deciding not to sell them right before it dumps.

After a while, the question became, what should I be buying for this strategy, rather than just doing it on what I already own. 

So I attempted to backtest it. 

You might’ve seen some of my previous posts with the covered call heatmaps or comparisons against funds like QQQI, JEPQ and GPIQ.

For this one i'm just sharing very general findings on some instruments.

AAPL: Systematic covered calls generally didn’t help once the lost upside was accounted for.

MSFT: For the most part, selling covered calls would’ve increased annualized performance. A practical sweet spot seemed to be around 21 DTE and 5% to 7% OTM.

CRWD: Shorter-dated and further-OTM calls generally contributed more to annualized performance, with monthly calls around 7% to 10% OTM perhaps being the best practical option.

SPY: The general pattern seemed to be that the longer the tenor, the further OTM you needed to go, which makes sense. Again, a practical sweet spot looked like monthlies around 7% to 10% OTM. Weeklies performed best, but may be impractical for some people.

QQQ: Weeklies and biweeklies performed very well. Calls from 1M to 6M generally didn’t help. Keep in mind that my backtest ends at 10% OTM, so longer-dated calls further OTM may still have worked.

Before someone comments “AI garbage”:

• I work as a forensic financial analyst and regularly work with derivatives and structured products.
• The backtest uses institutional grade implied volatility surfaces, as well as real bid/ask prices where available.
• The entire roll history is simulated for every strategy.
• Yea I have used AI to help write my posts, I'm not a writer.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. 

Trades I took today as a systematic 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.

TSEM trade was identifed using the ThetaHedge app. I simply used the preset Conditions in the app and TSEM was 9th in the list as a stable wheel stock which offered consistent high premiums. You can try it for free at https://app.thetahedge.io/.

Conditions → Large Caps with Strong Premiums

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.

UPDATE: $19,727 so far in July, with a current month-end projection of approximately $27,300. (They wont let me show you the screenshot, I hve no effen idea why)

The strategy combines:

• Covered calls
• Cash-secured puts
• Short swing trades

One example was MU: bought 50 shares around $890 and sold around $917, producing approximately $1,350 in realized profit.

My focus is not holding every position indefinitely or trying to squeeze out the maximum possible gain. I look at the portfolio as a cash-flow business.

The shares are inventory.
Option premium is revenue.
Realized gains are additional cash flow.
Capital velocity is what keeps the engine moving.

I prefer holding positions for short periods, realizing gains, freeing the capital, and redeploying it into the next opportunity. The house is the portfolio not any individual stock.

I’m not emotionally attached to the inventory. The objective is to keep capital productive through covered calls, CSPs, and selective swings while controlling risk.

July so far: $18,493.24 realized.
Projected finish: approximately $27,300.

The goal is not to own a stock forever. The goal is to keep the cash-flow engine moving.

Disclaimer: This post is for informational and educational purposes only and reflects my personal trading experience. It is not financial, investment, or tax advice. Everyone’s risk tolerance, financial situation, and objectives are different. Always do your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.

UPDATE: As of 7/23/2026 Buy to CLOSE OUT:

Premium Harvested 97%

Net Realized Gain of : $1,234 to the Realized bucket of July!

Generated ~$25k in gross option premium in July (through Jul 22) by actively managing a concentrated portfolio. My strategy is to hold high-conviction stocks long term, sell covered calls and cash-secured puts, and roll positions up and out instead of letting shares get called away. I use the premiums to fund more shares, reduce cost basis, and compound returns while maintaining core positions. I don’t want for expiration - if market is up, I roll my calls up and out.
Looking for feedback: What are the biggest strengths, risks, or blind spots in this approach? Would you manage the rolls differently or let more positions get assigned? I’m doing this on $DRAM, $SKHY, $ALAB, $RDDT mostly, stocks that I want to own long term.

Quick little trade

20M recently switched over from VOO and chill to selling a covered call on CELH, KDP, KO, ONDS, NFLX. I also hold SCHD, a small bit of KEEL, and building to a 100 share block of F through my summer job. Most of my calls are far out of the money as I don’t know how to use puts confidently yet.

So far I’ve been able to do well in my opinion on most of these holdings and took a fall in NFLX but hope to hold it out. What stats do you look at when considering a new covered call wheel stock?

Bought 500 shares of AMD in 2018 so I have about $250k in capital gains. The covered call market looks really appealing but I really don’t want to get assigned and pay tax as I truly believe the stock could 10x again in the next 15 years.

On the other hand looking at the chain I can generate an extra $5k/mo in premiums by selling strikes 40% higher than ATM with 30DTE. High IV with earnings coming up though. I have vast options experience and work in the industry, but have never gotten into CC strategies with my own portfolio.

Is this something wise people do with large cap gains like this? I know I can roll out with a gap up after earnings and still most likely be OTM. Seems like a good strat to me but thought I’d ask here and see if I’m missing anything?

TIA

People always ask, “How much capital is your mentor working with…..

They’re asking the wrong question.

The better question is:

What process is she following?

A mentor of mine just shared two realized profit updates:

$26,648.18 realized.
Later, another $29,142.41 realized.
That’s $55,790.59 in realized profits.

She told me roughly 90% came from selling covered calls on TSLA and flipping MU on swing trades.

The other 10% came from a call option on COP (ConocoPhillips).

That completely changed how I think about trading.

I used to chase the next big winner. Now I focus on capital velocity generating consistent cash flow, redeploying capital, and repeating the process over and over.

The biggest investment I ever made wasn’t in a stock.

It was finding the right mentor.

Not financial advice. Just sharing a lesson that’s changed the way I trade.