I’m mostly interested in networking and connecting with like minded and already profitable traders. I know we live in the digital world, but sometimes there is no substitute for connecting in person.
I see so many “traders” just wanting to make as much money as possible without any structure or real objective.
My number is 50% for this year BTW.
I see so many people just trying to trade their way to riches without any real structure; “I make whatever I can make.”
Congrats if you made it through so far this week without selling.
I borrowed some money to deploy.
Why?
In the 16 year history of SOXL this was the single greatest Monday-Wednesday drawdown.
It may not be an upward trend (and I don’t care) but I knew it would reverse based on history. Next week is…something new!
Week 17 of my leveraged ETF wheel — got assigned all over the place and I'm fine
Quick update, been a few weeks. Running a cash-secured put / covered call wheel on NVDL, SOXL, and TQQQ in my Roth. Started at ~$60k back in March, goal is roughly doubling it over a year on premium.
This week was the messy one. Expected NVDL to carry me and instead got assigned all over, and after a forward split I'm sitting on 1,500 shares down about $5k unrealized. Sounds bad, isn't really — assignment is just inventory. Started selling calls against the shares immediately and pulled $1,215 in premium for the week, which beat my ~$1,150 target.
The whole thing was sector rotation out of semis. Again. Feels like that's been the theme all year while everyone argues about whether AI is worth it. But rotations rotate back, and TQQQ/NVDL/SOXL all recovered into the back half of the week and brought me close to even.
Where I stand after 17 weeks:
Boring by design. Cash buffer held, nothing blew up, back next week. Happy to answer questions on strike selection or how I handle assignment. Link to all related articles in the comments.
Here’s how we stack up through 13 weeks of this LETF challenge in my smallest IRA account.
$2,400 collected this week — 208% of the $1,152 target.
$15,430 in net premium through 13 weeks (after realized losses).
$75,337 account value, up $15,430 (+25.8%) on the $59,907 starting basis.
103.0% annualized run rate. Still on track.
0.39 safety weeks. That’s the honest one. Link to the full article in the comments.
3 Tickers, SOXL, NVDL and TQQQ ONLY; all CSP's this week going into the long weekend at 10% cash.
I do not sell to Delta, I sell for premium, between 1-2.5% per week.
1 week DTE only.
In 13 weeks I've only been assigned 3 times; once early on with SOXL (at 48 if you can believe it!) and the other times were on MSTU and ETHU which I sold for a loss and eliminated from my ticker list because they never should have been there.
Note: I don't sell anything, this is documentation for my own accountability and to help people learn. The dashboard is simply Claude attached to my Google Drive tracking sheet.
Week 12 of doubling my Roth with the wheel on leveraged ETFs — took my first loss on purpose and corrected my own scoreboard
Here’s my leveraged ETF wheel strategy 100% ARR experiment Week 9 Update.
The methodology is based on 20 years of studying systems design and applying it to trading in one of my accounts. Full articles link in the comments (nothing to buy ever; writing for my own accountability).
- $3826 ahead of target
- 3.07 safety weeks to date
- 23.7% total return…137.4% annualized
- $14,246 total premium
- $59,907 starting account value
- SOXL, MSTU and ETHU were the lucky tickers this week.
I designed a system methodology and applied it to my trading with one of my smaller accounts. I’ll send you a link to the articles if you DM; I have no subscription or anything else to sell and I give you the full details of the system. I welcome any feedback.
Here’s the high level;
- 8 weeks in
- week 2 had a 20% drawdown in SOXL
- the strategy relies on only leveraged ETFs
- starting account balance = $59,907
- $12,614 earned so far with $72,521 current balance
- $1,576 average per week or 2.6%
- Goal is to double the account in one year. Currently at 136.9% annualized returns (21% total)
- I have 6.69 “safety” weeks to date meaning I don’t have to trade anything for that period and I’ll still be on track to double. Risk mitigation/control is a huge part of the strategy.
- deltas are typically under .2 but it’s not my main concern
I track via Google Sheets and the dashboard is from Claude which is connected to my drive.
The dashboard gives the facts, the full story with all trades, reasons and psychology are in the article:
I've been trading for a LOOOOONG time...since the crash of 1987 so I have a pretty good feel for the market. I will tell you that psychology is the #1 factor in your ability to not only make money but keep from losing it. I've done both many times and decided to build some structure around my process. Here are the important rules:
TL;DR: Six weeks live in a Roth IRA. Selling cash-secured puts and covered calls on SOXL, TQQQ, NVDL, ETHU. $59,907 starting capital. $10,411 in premium collected. 150% annualized run rate, tracked linearly (not compounded). These are the rules I actually follow, not the ones I read about.
Most "wheel on leveraged ETFs" content is one of two things: someone who blew up and is warning you off the whole idea, or someone who got lucky in a bull tape and thinks they cracked the code. Neither is useful. Here's what's actually working.
1. Pick your tickers and stop adding more. SOXL, TQQQ, NVDL, ETHU. That's it. Liquid weeklies, fat IV, products you understand. The temptation to chase whatever's running is the fastest way to end up holding something you can't manage when it turns. Listen to Buffet and ONLY trade what you know. My biggest losses have come from "taking a chance". It might feel sexy but it's just gambling.
2. 12% out-of-the-money is the default strike. Not 10. Not 15. 12. Tighten to 10% when IV is screaming. Widen to 15% when IV is dead. 8% is the absolute floor on a 3x ETF. Tighter than that and you're not selling premium, you're picking up nickels in front of a steamroller that's specifically designed to move three times faster than the underlying.
3. Close at 80-90% of max profit OR two days before expiry — whichever comes first. The last 20% of premium is not worth the gamma risk into expiration. Free up the buying power and look for the next setup.
4. Never deploy 100% of your cash. I cap at roughly 50%. The reason isn't the math — it's that when you get assigned (and you will), you need cash to keep the engine running. Fully deployed = you're now a long-only holder of a 3x leveraged ETF. That's not the strategy.
5. Assignment is inventory, not failure. If you get assigned, sell ATM covered calls the next session and start the wheel cycle. Don't panic-close shares at a loss. Don't refuse to sell calls because "it'll come back." Run the wheel.
6. High IV is the feature, not the bug. People look at 80%+ IV on SOXL and run. That elevated IV is the entire reason the premiums make this math work. If IV ever permanently collapsed on these names, the strategy stops working — but until then, treat high-vol environments as opportunities, not warnings.
7. Track your return on deployed capital, not portfolio value. A $200 premium on $10k of collateral is a 2% one-week return. The same $200 on a $60k portfolio is a 0.33% return. Both numbers are technically true. Only one tells you if your trade was good. My 150% is based on the PORTFOLIO value.
8. Track returns linearly. Don't compound. This one is unpopular. If you scale position size as the account grows, you're scaling drawdown risk in lockstep with returns. The whole point of capping deployment is to keep drawdowns survivable. Compounding undoes that. Pick a target dollar amount per week and stick to it.
9. The risk that kills this strategy is drawdown duration**, not drawdown** magnitude**.** A 30% drop that recovers in 6 weeks is annoying. A 30% drop that takes 18 months to recover is fatal because every covered call you sell during that grind either caps your upside or gets rolled at a loss. Plan for the long sideways grind, not the dramatic crash.
10. Sector concentration is real. SOXL and NVDL are the same bet. Both are semis. If you're running 3 contracts of each, you don't have two positions, you have one position with extra steps. TQQQ at least gives you broad Nasdaq exposure. ETHU is genuinely uncorrelated. Build the book like the correlations are real, because they are.
11. Run this in a tax-advantaged account if you possibly can. The turnover is brutal in a taxable account. Short-term gains on every premium. Wash sales when you get assigned and re-enter. Schedule D the size of a phone book. Roth IRA solves all of it. But I also trade in other taxable accounts. If I pay 100k in taxes this year, it's because I made a ton of money; don't fear the tax man, embrace it as success.
12. Don't sell premium into earnings without a plan. Mag 7 earnings weeks blow IV up beforehand and crush it after. The premium looks great on Monday and looks like a trap by Friday. Either size way down or sit out. "I'll just sell wider strikes" is not a plan.
13. Track a "safety weeks" metric. Cumulative premium above your weekly target, divided by the weekly target. If you have 4 safety weeks, you can collect zero premium for a month and still be on pace. This is the single most useful number I track. It tells you when you can afford to sit out or trade ultra conservative to keep that cushion going.
14. The right time to sit out is when you'd be selling premium just to feel productive. If the IV isn't there, the setup isn't there, or you can't articulate why this specific strike makes sense then close the laptop. Boredom trades are how disciplined strategies turn into undisciplined ones.
15. Write down your rules. Review them when you're tempted to break them. That's the actual reason this list exists. Not for you. For me, six months from now, when I'm staring at a monster premium 6% OTM on a Friday morning and need to remember why 12% is the rule.
This isn't a magic strategy. There are plenty of weeks I underperform a buy-and-hold investor in QQQ. The pitch isn't "this beats the market." The pitch is "this generates consistent income with a defined risk profile I can manage," and the numbers so far back that up.
It will absolutely have a bad quarter at some point. Maybe a bad year. The rules above are designed for the strategy to still be alive on the other side of that.
Would love to get your feedback on my strategy which is laid out in my third post. It feels very conservative given my goal in this account is just $1180/week but that is coming from a 59k starting amount. So six weeks in, I am up $10,411 in a very conservative fashion. Anyone can get lucky betting; my goal is to refine this system to PROTECT my money. I'm using a small handful of leveraged ETF's for additional IV.
If you read my posts, you will quickly understand that trading is more psychology than selection or indicators.
Here is my Substack (nothing to buy): https://open.substack.com/pub/bydesignsystem/p/week-6-100-return-in-1-year-challenge?r=1aruvv&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
