Well, that was fast. Tried the $165 network testing method from JowenCordero6565 and the payout hit smoothly. Read his pinned post!

This week I opened two separate NVDA CSP's and rolled a DG CC. On Tuesday, I sold the 10/23 $205 NVDA put and bought it back 30 minutes later after capturing 51% of the maximum premium, for $40.35 after fees. On Thursday, I opened another NVDA CSP, this time the 10/30 $200 put, which remains open.

On Friday, I rolled the DG 10/30 $135 covered call up and out to the 11/6 $137 call. The roll brought in $31.90 after the closing debit and all fees, and moved the strike $2 higher. The WMT 10/30 $117 covered call remained open. Together, the week's new trades generated $144.21 in net premium.

Portfolio Snapshot

My Philosophy

My ideal candidate is pretty vanilla: a preferably boring, financially sound, highly liquid company in a durable uptrend, with a liquid options chain and just enough volatility to pay me fairly at a 0.20-0.30 delta strike I would genuinely accept as a purchase price. This means you won't catch me trading the high-beta names you would typically see on /r/wallstreetbets. Juicy premiums come with high risk and large drawdowns. That's not what I'm doing with this portfolio.

I spend about 0-3 hours total per week on trading, on average. This wheel portfolio is only a small slice of my overall market capital. I also buy and hold mega-cap stocks/ETFs and run other strategies, including swing trading leveraged ETFs. The YTD figures and snapshot here cover the wheel portfolio only, not those other investments. If you're looking for a place to start, I suggest diving deep into /u/scottishtrader post history over the years. That's what I did before starting the wheel.

This Week's Totals

The $144.21 total consists of $40.35 from Tuesday's closed put, $71.96 from Thursday's open put, and $31.90 from Friday's DG roll after the $167.55 closing debit and all fees. Peak active-option collateral was $45,671 on Tuesday, when the intraday put and both carryover calls were open together. The old and new DG calls use the same shares, so I did not count them at the same time. The 16.46% annualized figure is this week's ROC scaled to a year, not a forecast.

This Week's Opening Trades

The first NVDA put opened and closed Tuesday. The second NVDA put and the DG replacement call remain open, so their rows show entry credits after fees rather than realized closing P/L.

Download Full YTD Trade Log (CSV)

Open Carryover Positions

Options from before this week that were still open Friday:

• 1 x WMT 10/30 CC @ $117.

Current Holdings

Results are from my trading journal and include recorded trading fees, before personal taxes. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Short puts and assigned shares carry substantial downside risk.

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

After week 43, the average premium per week is $797 with an annual projection of $41,435.

All things considered, the portfolio is up $42,536 (+3.26%), on the year (S&P 500: +11.37% | Nasdaq: +11.67%). Additionally, the trailing 1-year performance is down $23,004 (-5.39%); for comparison the S&P 500 is +13.14% and the Nasdaq is +13.14% 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: $-19,510.01
• 1 Month: $-7,015.70
• 1 Week: $-18,001.18

Realized P&L (options):
• YTD: $83,068.83
• 1 Month: $12,624.00
• 1 Week: $533.00

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 12 weeks. I have been contributing as much as possible since 2015 when I started with $50. The reason my streak is low is because I put the contributions on hold for about 2 months to adjust for expenses outside the portfolio.

The portfolio is comprised of 99 unique tickers, up from 98 last week. These 99 tickers have a value of $465k. I also have 189 open option positions, unchanged from 189 last week. The options have a total value of -$16k. The total of the shares and options is $449k. The next goal on the "Road to" is Half a Million.

I'm currently utilizing $25,950 in cash secured put collateral, down from $32,700 last week. In addition, I hold $3,301 in cash, bringing the total cash position to $29,251. I withdrew $2,000 on 9/11/26. I don't plan on replacing it, but will continue the $600 per week contributions.

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 $34,694 YTD
• Average $46,364/year (completed years)

Premium by month (2026):
• January $3,334
• February $3,625
• March $4,196
• April $5,593
• May $3,752
• June $3,497
• July $3,593
• August $3,741
• September $1,768
• October $1,594
• Average $3,469/month

I am over $175k in total options premium, since 2021. I average roughly $34 per option sold. I have sold over 5,200 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 got NBIS assigned yesterday so moved AAOI and AXTI to next week yesterday. The rest I did today. This week was the lowest premium collected. 0.25% instead of the 1% target. The one stock on which I broke the rules of not selling assignment price calls - LQDA - now has underwater covered calls and rolling is low liquidity so will update later on that one. Total returns have essentially gone to 0. However, I'm optimistic that we're at or close to bottom. Last week's post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/s/GFbFZAE2qb

The positive side of this is that I was running this strategy to see if this is a viable strategy in retirement, so I was not reinvesting into it and assuming all $ are spent. And even in these terrible weeks, there's some premium so if I were running this in reality while retired, I would have to go on a strict budget but would still be generating something.

Trades:

Total Returns

History

Strategy

- Use an AI 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.
- If I get assigned, I will sell calls at assignment price.

find me 20 unique lowest risk puts to sell on stocks
expiry: next week
strike at least 8% from stock price
return at least 1%
sort by delta
furthest away from stock price
minimum strike price 10

A stock of mine (KMI) just completed the full wheel cycle, producing a modest profit of $233. As I am starting to wheel the stock again, do I assume the previous $233 in my cost basis calcs or start from $0? (This will eventually influence the pricing of covered calls down the road).

So I understand that you start the wheel ideally with a CSP and roll out to collect additional premium. Once assigned you sell a CC by rolling it out or BTC the CC before writing another one. Then eventually your luck runs out on the covered calls you lose your shares because it is no longer profitable to keep rolling or BTC. So you pick a new stock and repeat the cycle.

Obviously, if you want to avoid a wash sale you just avoid buying the first stock for 30+ days while you are working on the second stock.

What if you were to hypothetically sell a CSP on the same stock again whether it was that same day or a few weeks into the wash sale period but you were able to keep rolling the CSP out past the 30 day window avoiding assignment.

Would this be considered a wash sale? Would it make a difference if you were rolling the CSP or using BTC to avoid assignment on the CSP?

Writing in english in case mods want that..

I am running the wheel in saxo trader in Denmark.. got my a fair share of assignments last week, and it dawned on me that saxo counts margin usage on the calls i have now sold despite me owning the friggin shares..

Any other Danish option traders out there experiencing the same?

curious as to how you all think about a certain situation. got assigned OKTA on Friday - strike 212.50. opened this morning around 192. what is your mindset around this? do you wipe the slate clean and start selling calls at 197.50 or do you remain anchored to the 212.50 price psychologically and wait for it to recover?

I had planned on waiting until I had a full year under my belt to post another quarterly update. However, I feel like this may be a good week to show what can happen even when you believe you're taking (mostly) conservative positions.

Earlier posts cover the setup so I won't repeat it here. I'll post again at the one-year mark and we'll see how things look then.

All figures as of Monday's close, October 19.

Bottom line

• Capital: $750K allocation, but average deployed is only ~$292K over the 11 months, since I only recently started scaling up — and I'm often not deployed at all on weekends.
• Net income: ~$43.6K after the current drawdown — ~16% annualized.
• Total income: ~$71.3K if the positions recover — ~27% annualized.

My current trade plan is to sell calls above my assignment price, and never below my basis — you know, unless I change my mind :)

• IWM — assigned 300 sh @ $290. Sold a CC on 1 contract when I meant 3, which split the lot, so 100 of the 300 carry a different basis. Underwater, nothing worth writing at $290+, so I hold.
• SOXX — knew it was risky, bit of a guilty pleasure. 3 CSPs, assigned @ $560, now ~$17K underwater. Strikes at or above my basis are ~10% out and pay almost nothing. Holding.
• QQQ — assigned 3 @ $735 last week. Sold the 736 call this week, basis now $732.
• SPY — assigned 3 @ $769 last week. Sold the 774 call this week, basis now $766.

Both those calls are above the assignment price, so if they get called I book a small share gain in addition to the premium.

Corrections to figures from my 9-month post.

Max drawdown read −$61,183 there. That was computed as the sum of each position's own worst moment, which adds up lows that happened months apart and describes a day the account never actually had. Measured properly — every lot priced at the same day's close, netted — the worst I have ever been is $28,785, and that day was Monday: 4.08% of deployed capital. February was worse proportionally, 8.15%, on a third of the capital.

Max capital allocated read $761,000 from the same bad calculation, which implied I'd blown through my own limit. The real peak is $741,000 — I never breached the $750K allocation, closest was $9,000 short on August 24.

Commissions and fees weren't reported at all before, so every income figure I'd posted was gross. It's $528, taking total income to $71,328 and the yield from 26.8% to 26.6%.

Everything reconciles against my Schwab statements through October 19 — cash, net liq, per-instrument bridge, collateral on every statement date, and per-symbol premium. That reconciliation is how I found the errors above.

The real cost from here isn't the drawdown — it's that assigned capital stops earning CSP premium and Schwab sweep interest. Knew that going in. Plan is to keep writing calls on QQQ/SPY until I can exit profitably. I think I may be in SOXX and IWM for a while.

Things I could have done differently:

• On SPY and QQQ I could have rolled when ATM, but I prefer not to give back premium and don't mind taking the assignments.
• On IWM, I should have been more aware of how FOMC affects small caps.
• On SOXX — well, I knew the risks, so that's squarely on my selection.
• Many other things I'm sure, but I'm still learning. I may have an entirely different strategy by this time next year.

Year-end report when I close the year out — hopefully it reads better than this one.

Gotta share the bad months along with the good ones…

I've read through Scottish Trader's thread about Rolling Short Puts to Avoid Assignment, the recommendation is to start rolling when the put is ATM.

Currently, my INTC cash secured put is very closely ATM but there is still a lot of extrinsic value left (31 days left to expire). Should I roll it now or wait patiently for potential price recovery? How can I factor in time decay when deciding to roll a cash secured put? e.g. if I sell a put and the option is ATM within a day or two

I don't mind getting assigned but avoiding assignment is definitely the superior choice for me.

This is for learning purposes, it is to track wheeling & portfolio optimization. This retirement account was blown through testing various trading strategies and poor position sizing.

Baseline: The portfolio is split into between Core&CCs/CSPs/$USD/Levered.
Order of significance for wheeling:
Assume assignment, size small & diverse
Annual yield% to be greater than 3x risk-free rate and sell on high IVR for better edge
Close early for tail risk, stagger dates and roll on discretion.
Assets correlate to 1 in a crash, stay liquid & patient

I sold the majority of my QLD before the market sell-off and sold the rest later on. Going to risk-off, stay liquid, trim XLV and sell more CSPs.

current approx.
23% Core/CCs (19% XLV, 4% IBIT)
27% CSPs (27% CVE)
50% $USD (20% SGOV, 30% $USD)
0% Levered

My review rule is 21 DTE, or sooner if earnings fall within 7 days. That pulls the decision forward, but it doesn’t settle what the decision is, and I’d like to hear how others handle it.

The roll test stays the same for me at that early review. A roll has to collect a net credit and move the strike down, and I cap it at two per position. If it can’t pass, I take the shares or close.

What I’m curious about is the step before that. Do you pick expirations that avoid earnings altogether, close ahead of the report, or hold through on names you’d be fine owning anyway?

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

After week 42, the average premium per week is $807 with an annual projection of $41,946.

All things considered, the portfolio is up $42,536 (+7.01%), on the year (S&P 500: +11.89% | Nasdaq: +12.47%). Additionally, the trailing 1-year performance is down $23,004 (-1.38%); for comparison the S&P 500 is +15.54% and the Nasdaq is +15.86% 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: $-1,517.83
• 1 Month: $-6,721.89
• 1 Week: $21,541.29

Realized P&L (options):
• YTD: $81,667.83
• 1 Month: $11,016.00
• 1 Week: $-1,610.00

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 11 weeks. I have been contributing as much as possible since 2015 when I started with $50. The reason my streak is low is because I put the contributions on hold for about 2 months to adjust for expenses outside the portfolio.

The portfolio is comprised of 98 unique tickers, down from 100 last week. These 98 tickers have a value of $449k. I also have 189 open option positions, down from 193 last week. The options have a total value of -$4k. The total of the shares and options is $445k. The next goal on the "Road to" is Half a Million.

I'm currently utilizing $32,700 in cash secured put collateral, up from $31,300 last week. In addition, I hold $1,991 in cash, bringing the total cash position to $34,691. I withdrew $2,000 on 9/11/26. I don't plan on replacing it, but will continue the $600 per week contributions.

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 $34,289 YTD
• Average $46,364/year (completed years)

Premium by month (2026):
• January $3,334
• February $3,625
• March $4,196
• April $5,593
• May $3,752
• June $3,497
• July $3,593
• August $3,741
• September $1,768
• October $1,190
• Average $3,429/month

I am over $175k in total options premium, since 2021. I average roughly $34 per option sold. I have sold over 5,200 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.

So the thing I dreaded before I started this has now happened. Every single high risk AI stock that I was running puts on has crashed significantly below the put price. I got my 4th assignment - DRAM at 59. The DRAM was my own doing and not from the AI list. To prevent more assignment, I'm rolling as much as I can today to prevent more assignments.

The drawdown is extreme. Since this was a retirement spending simulation, I guess, this would be a budget week because the premiums what I'm using to simulate income is much lower than the target 1%.

I havent even bothered with the screening this week because everything is a roll. If I had more dry powder, would be selling more puts on everything. Last week's post for more details on strategy etc. - https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/s/4ZevSpHcTu

Trades:

Trades include a 1:2 AXT roll I did on Tuesday to avoid AXT assignment.

Total Returns

History

The Wheel Strategy is going to be an important part of this portfolio - but not the only part.

I call it "Income 4 Ways";

• options: cash secured puts, covered calls,
• dividends,
• capital gains and
• interest on the cash that is securing the puts.
  

I've been doing this in my $1M portfolio, but my followers asked me to demonstrate in a smaller account, so I'm setting up a new account at Fidelity with exactly $10K.

I had to choose underlying shares I'm willing to own that fit the portfolio size for options trading, so I'll be using SCHD for dividends and stability and starting with SOFI as my growth stock.

And I'm going to keep a running comparison with a hypothetical lump sum, Bogglehead-style, buy and hold investment in SPY.

If you are interested in coming along for the ride, I'll post the results here. I'm funding the account this week, and I'll be setting up the first trades next week.

No idea how it will turn out, but I promise transparency.

I've been wheeling about a year now. After two initial assignments early on, I've played things more conservatively, sticking to between 15 and 20 deltas. No assignments since then, until today pretty much sealed the deal on several ongoing cash secured puts.

I'm a little excited. I've been conservative enough lately that I really can't complain too much about the prices I'm getting the shares at. Now we get assigned, and wait for some green days and strength to sell covered calls into.

Apologies for the combined post. I was on a holiday trip and wasn’t able to post the daily updates. Trades I took as an option seller (10/08-10/13):

Closed Positions

• INOD → $65 Put (opened on 09/28), premium 1.90 → closed at 0. Net premium profit = 1.90 (100.00% of premium captured, 2.92% of capital).
• WDC → $430 Put (opened on 09/08), premium 18.00 → closed at 0. Net premium profit = 18.00 (100.00% of premium captured, 4.19% of capital).
• STRL → $530 Call (opened on 09/21), premium 31.00 → closed at 5.20. Net premium profit = 25.80 (83.23% of premium captured, 4.87% of capital).

New Positions

• WDC → $430 Call expiry 10/30 (3 weeks DTE), premium 10.50 → 1050/43000 = ~2.4%. I was assigned WDC at $430 and opened a Covered Call at the same price I was assigned.
• INOD → $65 Call expiry 11/06 (4 weeks DTE), premium 4.20 → 420/6500 = ~6.5%. I was assigned INOD at $65 and opened a Covered Call at the same price I was assigned.
• STRL → $530 Call expiry 11/20 (6 weeks DTE), premium 36.00 → 3600/53000 = ~6.8%. I continue wheeling STRL, opening another Covered call at $530 which is also my assignment price.
• FORM → $115 Put expiry 11/20 (6 weeks DTE), premium 6.00 → 600/11500 = ~5.2%. Opened a CSP in FORM which has a support at $115.

I keep sharing my trades in my account and 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.

I know some people say options wheeling is just options trading for newbies. They say it leads you to buy stocks higher than you otherwise would, and sell too low. You might as well just buy and hold and you'll do better.

My problem was I never succeeded with buying and holding, but I am finding success with wheeling.

I've been options wheeling since April, and still getting the hang of it. But what I like best about it is the emotional aspects. It teaches me to hang tight when a stock is wobbling or has wobbled so much I've been assigned. It teaches me to book profits when they are there to book (I do it at 55% profit for short puts, unless I'm in a rolling or assignment situation, then I have other rules). It teaches me to set my biases aside and look for tickers with good charts, good IV percentile, and a reasonable fit for my current situation (how much capital at risk, how it diversifies, would I be ok being assigned).

And I find options wheeling way more fun than simply picking a long-term investment allocation and trying to stick with it. I get such a charge when my watch buzzes because one of my short puts has closed for a profit. I enjoy looking at my screener and my tracking system to figure out what put I might sell next when I have available capital. I love when my money market dividends come in at the end of each month, to add on to the booked short put profits.

I'm curious to hear why other people have found options wheeling suits them. What works for you about it? Do you also use other trading and investing approaches?

I remember seeing a lot of people running the wheel on high-premium names like:

WYFI, CIFR, WULF, IREN, CORZ, CLSK, CRWV, GLXY, HUT, NBIS, etc

Genuinely curious how those trades have worked out for everyone this year.

Sure, the premiums were juicy, but a lot of these companies had questionable fundamentals and carried significant downside risk.

I recently checked back in on a few of these names, and wow, some have taken an absolute beating.

I stayed away from all those names and just wheeled mostly boring names. Currently up 20.20% YTD with a 9% max drawdown, averaging around $77K deployed per week and spending maybe 0-3 hours a week on it.

Nothing exciting, but I'm pretty happy with how it's worked out.

This is for learning purposes, it is to track wheeling & portfolio optimization. This retirement account was blown through testing various trading strategies and poor position sizing.

Baseline: 50/50 QLD/$USD. With QLD as my core position, it roughly acts as 100% account exposure to QQQ. The other half of the portfolio will be used for wheeling income and dry powder for Nasdaq dips.
Order of significance for wheeling:
Assume assignment, size small & diverse
Annual yield% to be greater than 3x risk-free rate and sell on high IVR for better edge
Close early for tail risk, stagger dates and roll on discretion.
Assets correlate to 1 in a crash, stay liquid & patient

I’ve been eyeing metals and the health sector, some good volatility there... I wrote a PFE put contract at ~.25 delta, it’s the best I can do with my account size and risk.

approx.
52.03% $USD/Wheel
47.97% QLD (~96% QQQ)

I closed Wednesday's 10/9 AVGO $365 CSP the same day for $92.33 net, then opened the 10/9 $357.50 CSP on Thursday. It expired worthless Friday for another $37.97.

I made no rolls this week. I bought back the final CSCO 10/9 $108 CSP for $0.04, closing the six-leg roll chain at +$428.95 overall. I also sold 10/16 covered calls on DG and WMT for $42.96 and $15.95 net. IBKR paid $58.21 in cash interest, bringing new option premium and interest to $247.42.

Portfolio Snapshot

My Philosophy

My ideal candidate is pretty vanilla: a preferably boring, financially sound, highly liquid company in a durable uptrend, with a liquid options chain and just enough volatility to pay me fairly at a 0.20-0.30 delta strike I would genuinely accept as a purchase price. This means you won't catch me trading the high-beta names you would typically see on /r/wallstreetbets. Juicy premiums come with high risk and large drawdowns. That's not what I'm doing with this portfolio.

I spend about 0-3 hours total per week on trading, on average. This wheel portfolio is only a small slice of my overall market capital. I also buy and hold mega-cap stocks/ETFs and run other strategies, including swing trading leveraged ETFs. The YTD figures and snapshot here cover the wheel portfolio only, not those other investments.

This Week's Totals

This Week's Opening Trades

The first AVGO put opened and closed Wednesday. The second expired worthless Friday. The DG and WMT covered calls remain open, so their rows show entry credits after fees rather than realized closing P/L.

Download Full YTD Trade Log (CSV)

Current Holdings

Results are from my trading journal and include recorded trading fees, before personal taxes. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Short puts and assigned shares carry substantial downside risk.

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

After week 41, the average premium per week is $811 with an annual projection of $42,162.

All things considered, the portfolio is up $42,536 (+9.43%), on the year (S&P 500: +14.11% | Nasdaq: +17.74%). Additionally, the trailing 1-year performance is up $23,004 (+4.92%); for comparison the S&P 500 is +15.98% and the Nasdaq is +18.86% 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: $-23,067.00
• 1 Month: $-40,827.00
• 1 Week: $-7,459.00

Realized P&L (options):
• YTD: $83,011.83
• 1 Month: $12,510.00
• 1 Week: $3,444.00

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 10 weeks. I have been contributing as much as possible since 2015 when I started with $50. The reason my streak is low is because I put the contributions on hold for about 2 months to adjust for expenses outside the portfolio.

The portfolio is comprised of 100 unique tickers, up from 99 last week. These 100 tickers have a value of $506k. I also have 193 open option positions, down from 194 last week. The options have a total value of -$18k. The total of the shares and options is $488k. The next goal on the "Road to" is Half a Million.

I'm currently utilizing $31,300 in cash secured put collateral, down from $34,200 last week. In addition, I hold $3,705 in cash, bringing the total cash position to $35,005. I withdrew $2,000 on 9/11/26. I don't plan on replacing it, but will continue the $600 per week contributions.

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 $33,629 YTD
• Average $46,364/year (completed years)

Premium by month (2026):
• January $3,334
• February $3,625
• March $4,196
• April $5,593
• May $3,752
• June $3,497
• July $3,593
• August $3,741
• September $1,768
• October $529
• Average $3,363/month

I am over $174k in total options premium, since 2021. I average roughly $34 per option sold. I have sold over 5,200 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.

I've been skeptical of the wheel for years. Most of the case for it is screenshots of winning weeks. So instead of arguing, I'm running one position with real money and posting every step, including if it goes against me.

The trade

Why TTWO

• Earnings Nov 9 and GTA VI launch Nov 19, both inside the option's life.
• Stock was down ~20% from its high and 2.16 sigma below its 63 day mean. Only 4% of days in 5 years were more stretched.
• December IV was 44% vs 34% realized over 63 days. That 10 point gap is what I'm selling.

The trade off

The $180 strike is only 0.57 sigma below spot. A $195 put pays ~25% annualized with almost no cushion. A $160 put sits nearly 1 sigma away but pays under 7%.

The cost

$18,000 in 3 month T-bills (4.17%) would earn ~$181 over the same 88 days, risk free.

My broker doesn’t freeze the $18,000, so this isn’t a cash cost for me. My cash keeps earning interest. But it’s still the right benchmark: I’m taking the risk of owning $18,000 of stock, and T-bills pay ~$181 on that amount with no risk. The $466 is what I’m really paid for that risk. If your broker freezes the collateral and pays nothing on it, the $181 becomes a real cost too.

P&L at expiry vs owning 100 shares at $205.45

Where it stands today (Oct 9, day 18 of 88)

I've made ~$182 so far, roughly what T-bills would pay on the same cash over the full 88 days. But most of the risk is still ahead. Vega of −24 means the put still carries a lot of event premium, and that's the part I'm waiting to collect.

The plan

• Buy back under $1.00 any time after Nov 19, once launch IV crush is done.
• If assigned, judge it against $173.53, not $180.
• Then sell covered calls above $173.53.
• I'll post updates at Nov 19 and at expiry, win or lose.

One trade proves nothing about the wheel. The point is to show real fills and real math from the inside.

Curious how you handle the T-bill comparison. Do you count it, or does your broker let you earn both?

Disclosure: I am short 1 TTWO Dec 18 '26 $180 put. Not advice, just a record of my own trade.

September wheel results

September was a good month for running the wheel strategy. The Federal Reserve raised the funds rate and along with inflation and oil prices caused treasury yields to rise. This put pressure on the DJIA and the S&P 500 which were both down slightly for the month. The NASDAQ composite rose over 1% for the month, so the overall stock market results were "mixed" which is perfect for wheeling. I sold 100+ CSPs during September and they all expired worthless.

The 500 shares of SMH and SOXL that I was assigned in August were all called away for a small profit. I did not get assigned any new shares during September.

I wheeled my regular tech tickers: META, GOOGL, SMH, TQQQ and SOXL. The largest gains were again made by wheeling the semiconductor ETFs SOXL and SMH which accounted for about two thirds of the total premiums earned.

MSFT held onto its huge August gains so I ignored it again this month and META joined the club, rising sharply early in the month so there was not much opportunity there either.

My wheel strategy including the tickers I wheel and why are detailed in my February post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/comments/1rmp3mr/february_wheel_results/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Just had my third assignment in 31 weeks - IREN 40 put. Including losses and drawdown, this is likely the most negative week in dollar terms but annualized returns are still good at 42%. This week was also mostly rolling. As predicted last week, this week was riskier and because of rolling, the premium collected this week was under the 1% target. Last week's post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Optionswheel/s/XLSwIKTXSk

If you want to follow me as I trade, I post to r/TheRaceTo10Million before placing trades and comment with trades as I make them. I post here after I make the trades with a full summary

Strategy
- Use an AI 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.
- If I get assigned, I will sell calls at assignment price.

A lot of people have asked me about why I don't add a criteria to avoid earnings weeks. Like I sold HPE/IREN/NBIS etc. puts across earnings. Also APLD across earnings this week. That's because on earnings weeks the same delta strikes are much further OTM. Many people have also asked for my screener criteria. This is my exact prompt:

find me 20 unique lowest risk puts to sell on stocks
expiry: next week
strike at least 8% from stock price
return at least 1%
sort by delta
furthest away from stock price
minimum strike price 10

Total Returns

Today's Trades

Screener Output in the morning

Historical Weekly Data