That’s all, just sending you all my condolences. May we all remember covered calls are not “free money”.

I’ve been doing covered calls for 2 years now, and I keep falling into the same trap of how premiums. I chase stocks with high premiums but they end up falling 50% within a month or so after. There have been months where I make 20% but then when the bad month comes my portfolio falls 50%-60%. I’ve been selling calls Iren Clsk Tsla Crwv Apld sofi I get that these are all ai stocks mostly but if any of you have any recommendations would appreciate it

TSLA trade card · OptionWhales daily thesis

Tesla has spent 2026 giving back the premium the market granted it for robotaxis. The Motley Fool wrote on August 19 that the market cap had slipped under $1.5 trillion with the stock trailing the S&P 500 by nearly 38% on the year, a whole-company number, not a fact about this order (https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/08/19/teslas-market-cap-just-slipped-below-15-trillion-h/). At 14:26:46 ET that session, with the stock at $348.085, a seller wrote 1,500 January 15, 2027 $280 puts and collected $1,642,500. Short volatility with a bullish lean: paid for time passing and for the range holding, wanting TSLA above $280 five months out.

The derating has a stated cause. Estimates through 2028 came down as robotaxi revenue arrived later than promised and capital spending ran past $25 billion; the same August 19 piece argues the bear case is now largely marked into the price. Still, Benzinga reported on August 18 that Einride ordered 500 Semis, the largest deployment of the truck to date.

The strike sits 19.6% under spot. $10.95 a share, so $1,095 per contract, 149 days to expiry, delta -0.17, implied vol on the contract 46.1%. It printed as a single order into open interest of 9,079 at that strike, 17% of it, so open versus close is not determinable: 1,500 lots could be new or could be someone stepping out of that pile, and open interest cannot separate them. Fully cash secured that is a $42 million obligation, assignment implying $269.05 net against a $348.085 spot.

A 46.1% line over 149 days prices a one standard deviation move of roughly 29%, so that 19.6% strike sits well inside the cone. The $1.6M pays the seller to carry the band between a moderate decline and a severe one. For that to be a fair price you would have to believe the robotaxi disappointment has been paid for once already, as that August 19 piece argues, and that a name down 38% against the index has less room to repeat it than 46 vol assumes. Two readings fit: cash-secured entry, someone content to own Tesla near $269 while collecting to wait, or relative value in the volatility, writing an elevated line on a name whose expectations were reset months ago. The 0.17 delta pushes me toward the second, since a buyer who wanted shares would sell nearer the money and collect far more for the same 149 days.

This works while that reset holds, and the expiry is built to test it. TipRanks puts the next earnings report on October 28, inside the contract's life, and the fourth-quarter delivery release lands near expiry on Tesla's usual calendar. What breaks it is a second leg down in expectations, capex guidance climbing again or autonomy timelines slipping past where the Street has marked them.

The Semi order supports this less than it looks. FleetOwner reported on August 19 that Einride is financing the 500 trucks over 24 months with a four-year asset-backed loan at an effective rate near 14%, so most of that revenue arrives after January 15. The open question is whether October shows robotaxi mileage compounding fast enough to pull the volatility line down, because at 46.1% the January contracts are still priced for an argument.

*Educational content only. Not investment advice.*

I’m getting into trading options, specifically selling covered calls. Obviously there are risks - missing out on potential future gains if a contract is exercised, the value of the underlying stock could go to zero, but selling covered calls almost seems too good to be true. What am I missing? What’s the catch?

MU trade card · OptionWhales daily thesis

The consensus on Micron has a celebrity attached to it. On the SpaceX earnings call of August 4, per 24/7 Wall St. on August 17 (https://247wallst.com/investing/2026/08/17/elon-musks-5-word-statement-should-have-every-micron-investor-paying-attention/), Elon Musk named memory rather than power or GPUs as the ceiling on his compute buildout, citing demand growing 200% a year against 20% supply growth. At 10:52:47 ET a 680-contract January 15, 2027 put vertical printed in one burst into that story, $50 wide and wrapped around spot at $943, for a net credit of $1,028,500. A credit on a put vertical can only come from writing the higher strike, so the $1,000 put is the sold side. Net delta across the legs lands near flat and the two vegas cancel, which leaves the $50 band between the strikes as the exposure rather than any direction.

The bull case here is not soft. Micron's fiscal Q3 release in June carried record free cash flow, HBM3E and HBM4 booked through 2027 with demand into 2028, and $22B of strategic customer agreements including $18B in cash deposits. Against that, TrendForce's July survey (via Tom's Hardware, July 4: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/memory-price-surge-begins-to-cool-as-consumers-hit-affordability-limit-ai-demand-still-keeps-dram-and-nand-prices-climbing-through-q3-2026) has conventional DRAM contract prices up 13% to 18% in Q3, a marked cooling from prior quarters, with Q4 penciled at 3% to 8%. Both of those are facts about the memory cycle and the whole name, not about this order.

The two legs, same second, matched size:

- Sold 340 January 15, 2027 $1,000 puts at $191.35 a share, 69.7% IV, delta -0.45
- Bought 340 January 15, 2027 $950 puts at $161.10 a share, 69.2% IV, delta -0.40

That is 150 days out, with the lower strike sitting $7 above a $943 spot, so the whole $50 corridor is at or just above the money. The written strike carried 3,168 contracts of prior-day open interest and the bought strike 1,497, both far larger than the 340 done on each leg, so whether this opens new exposure or unwinds existing exposure is not determinable here. Our leg-signing confidence on the individual sides is weak on its own; the $1.0M credit is what pins the net shape.

For this to be an attractive structure standalone, you would want vol at 70% five months out to be rich relative to how a $943 stock actually travels through a $50 window, and you would want the pricing deceleration TrendForce sketches for Q4 to matter less to the path than the booked-through-2027 order book suggests. Collecting $30.25 of a $50 width is roughly 60% of the distance, which is aggressive pricing for a corridor straddling spot. The competing reading is that both strikes already had thousands of contracts open, and a matched 340x340 burst inside that is as consistent with adjusting an existing January book as with a fresh position. I lean to the second, mostly because of the strike selection: someone building this from scratch has the whole chain and picked the two strikes with prior interest.

My read is that this position is comfortable with the memory cycle staying loud in either direction and uncomfortable with a slow drift that parks the stock inside the corridor. Micron's next quarterly report is estimated for September 29 per TipRanks, and a December print lands before expiry too, so two earnings and two quarters of DRAM contract data sit inside the contract's life. What would change the regime by January is supply arriving: SK Hynix, which Tech Times put at 56% of global HBM revenue in Q1 2026, approved new capacity at board level in August.

*Educational content only, not investment advice.*

First time caller, long time listener....

There are a lot of smart people in this sub, so I'm looking for some feedback/advice. Towards the end of the last year, I started using a QQQ covered call strategy in my IRA portfolio to generate cash flows, in the hopes of eventually leaving the corporate world. It has been very successful at times, but my assignments and opportunity cost (capped upside) have been significant this summer.

I recently ladder my 9 contracts split evenly between 15/20/25 delta with 7-10DTE. I roll at >70%gains. Previously, I did 30/35/40 delta 7-10DTE, but was getting large assignments during some weekly rips. I get it, I know that's the whole point that I'm getting short term gains at the expense of long term appreciation, but it there a better sweet spot to ladder? I'm not adverse to assignment because this is a non-taxable account so capital gains are currently not the issue.

For context, I split my overall IRA into 70% total market and 30% QQQ CC. My goal is to have the growth in my 70% sleeve offset or absorb any losses (NAV erosion) that I'm taking in the 30% CC sleeve because I value income over growth.

Is a 30% return on the CC sleeve a reasonable return? Right now, I'm tracking about 15% run rate.

Thanks in advance!

Today with ORCL at $146 one could sell October 2028 $240 calls for $35!! That’s a huge premium for a call almost $100 out of the money.

I almost pulled the trigger but that balance is highly leveraged.

What do you think?

NVDA trade card · OptionWhales daily thesis

Someone Spent $270,000 to Buy a Five-Dollar-Wide Slice of Nvidia's Upside

At 11:17:01 ET on August 17, with NVDA trading at $227.27, two option orders printed in the same second, in matched size: 1,500 November 20, 2026 $240 calls bought at roughly $13.90 a share, and 1,500 of the $245 calls of the same expiry sold at roughly $12.10. Gross premium across both legs came to $3.9 million. The cash that actually left the account was $270,000 — $1.80 per share on a structure five dollars wide.

That last sentence is the whole trade. This was not a purchase of calls. It was the purchase of a bounded corridor: the buyer acquired exposure that begins at $240, about 5.6% above where the stock was trading, and stops dead at $245, about 7.8% above. Everything above $245 was sold away to help pay for it. The classifier flags the two legs as one package with 90% confidence, inferred from identical size and same-second execution. We cannot prove one account owns both — that inference is from the tape, not from a filing.

The Debit Tells Us Which Leg Was Which

Our per-leg buyer/seller tagging on this print is weak — 10% confidence on each side, which is barely better than a coin flip. So the orientation is not established by the tape. It is established by arithmetic. The package cost money rather than paying money, and a 240/245 call vertical only produces a net debit in one configuration: long the lower strike, short the higher one. Had the legs been reversed, the same two prices would have generated a $270,000 credit. They did not. The debit is the evidence.

The Volatility View Nets to Nothing, and So Does Most of the Direction

Both legs carry essentially the same implied volatility — 39.4% on the long leg, 39.3% on the short — and share the same November 20 expiry. Buying vol at one price and selling it at effectively the same price in the same month means the volatility exposures largely cancel. Whatever this position is, it is not a bet on Nvidia's option premiums getting richer or cheaper.

Direction is trimmed almost as hard. The long $240 call carries a delta of 0.452; the short $245 call, 0.411. Net, the package began life with about 0.04 of delta per spread — roughly 6,100 shares of stock-equivalent exposure, or about $1.4 million of directional footprint from $3.9 million of gross premium. The bias is upward, and that holds regardless of anything else in this article. But it is a deliberately small bias, bounded on both ends by design.

That is why the payload's "non-directional" intent label deserves scrutiny rather than repetition. A call debit spread leans bullish. What is unusual here is how little directional exposure the trader retained for the premium committed.

What We Cannot Determine, and Why That Matters

Whether this opened a new position or closed an old one is not determinable. The reason is specific: prior-day open interest is known for both contracts — 12,737 at the $240 strike, 9,078 at the $245 — and both figures dwarf the 1,500 lots traded. When existing interest is that much larger than the trade, the volume could have been created or extinguished inside it, and the open-interest print cannot distinguish. Zero percent of this package sits in legs that can be signed either way, well below the threshold we require to characterise a position.

The directional lean does not soften because of that. A bounded long-call structure is bullish-leaning whether it establishes a new view or unwinds an old one. What we cannot claim is motive. A hedge against a share position, a delta-neutral book, or a corporate exposure we cannot see would look identical on the tape.

Nine Days to Earnings, Ninety-Five to Expiry

Nvidia reports Q2 fiscal 2027 results on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, after the close — nine sessions after this print. The expiry sits 95 days out, meaning the position spans that report and, on Nvidia's historical calendar, plausibly a second one in November; the Q3 date was not confirmed at the time of writing, so treat that as unresolved rather than assumed.

The day's discourse was about the durability of Nvidia's position against hyperscaler-designed silicon, framed by a Motley Fool piece published August 16 asking where each moat is strongest and what could weaken it. That is context, not causation. Nothing in the tape links this structure to that argument.

*This is analysis of publicly reported options activity, not investment advice. Options carry risk of total loss, and the intent behind any single trade is unknowable from public data.*

I’ve been investing for 50 years, but only regularly selling cc’s for the last few months. I’m killing it with selling same day covered calls. On positive opens only I’ll sell cc options on ai stocks $5 or so otm 15 minutes or so after market open and right after the sale put in a limit order to buy them back for 20% of what I sold them for. I’m making a killing! I’ve had shares assigned a few times and with a little patience I buy them back a day or two later for the assignment price. I understand I run the risk of a stock gapping and never getting it back again but I can always find another good stock. I sort of feel like I’m the house in the same day option craze and loving it. What am I missing here?

I'd been rolling an XOM CC for about 2 months as it went up and down like a roller coaster due to the situation in the Mideast. Assigned a week early (Aug 14th instead of the 21st) because the ex-date is tomorrow, the 17th.

Doh. Live and learn.

I have level 1 option with ML. It’s not letting me sell call against my long call, do u know why?

I bought 6000 shares of stock in July for $40.. it went down to $20 now it's $32 as of today....

If I sell calls at xp of 35 for Sept.. i would receive $4...

My intuition is stock continues to climb but I don't have a magic ball..

I don't mind taking a loss..

Fwiw.. Earnings are at the end of September

Thoughts on selling covered calls?

Partial hedging?

https://preview.redd.it/akz5ajoayvjh1.png?width=2265&format=png&auto=webp&s=50a2bfa396b1740634e3b76d2b4488aa3a7d9af0

just sharing new layout options

https://preview.redd.it/9yle1yeghgjh1.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=214e64f5efe6dfa8f1d8b1b46d8ed59c926c3714

The market continues to be volatile- my META was literally closed in 1 day for a 90% premium captured.

Major Trades this week:

• Opened and closed META CC; will continue wheeling

https://preview.redd.it/otqv4yfkigjh1.png?width=1780&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbf692b0198390257125231e5c7d91fbe672d847

• Rolled AVGO for credit; it expired worthless today. Will open aggressive ($400) CC next week.

https://preview.redd.it/m2esjcmyigjh1.png?width=1780&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d0e1ee1473a635189dfc54649236b0314e525fd

• Opened and rolled ITM CRM CSP, CRM is seeing some strong price action. I think it will be north of $200 before earnings

https://preview.redd.it/9t2b5vgajgjh1.png?width=1780&format=png&auto=webp&s=fddc09c4b1357d0683e09704f50768c6d42fd9e2

• New company entered my option selling universe after a long time. It's an earnings play with wheeling intention.

https://preview.redd.it/r3t9ybmnjgjh1.png?width=1780&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3c46f12bc37c73d17fa9c00c85e2b905e0cf1cd

Capital remaining to deploy: ~30k

Misc:

This is my aggressive wheeling account, capital deployed range 150k-200k.

All trades were found using this website (disc- I'm the developer)

I usually sell 0.25-0.45 delta and usually <20 days DTE. I close at 70%-80% premium captured.

I've started reporting only realized premiums (based on the comments).

April (Week 1-4): $5036
May (Week 5-8): $5783
Jun (Week 9-12): $6533
Jul (Week 13-16): $12609
Aug(Week 17-): $3400

Total so far: ~33.2k

My previous post 12 days ago titled 'Dealing with NBIS Temper tantrums over the past month - Update 8/2/2026'. I rolled down to $190 December strike because NBIS got hit two days in a row on 7/28 and 7/29 to get a $38.4 cushion before the earnings date.

I had also mentioned that if the stocks rips on earnings, I'll buy the call back (agreed that it raises my cost basis) and pull the expiry date back in. That is exactly what happened . NBIS had blowout earnings and the stock went up $62.

So I bought back the December call for $84 (it raised my cost basis to $222.85 ) and immediately sold a September 2026 strike at 260 for $25.1 . As of Friday close, the stock is at $277.38 and if it stays above , max profit will be $3715.

Here is my expected profit profile at expiry at various stock prices at September Expiry;

Expected Profit profile in September

My updated trade log:

Updated Trade log

I get asked often - what did these trades buy me and is the effort worth it?

My simple answer is - peace of mind and confidence that I have a fighting chance to save my initial investment even as the stock kept falling.

Thesis is still intact and hope to close at a profit in September since the stock is showing technical strength.

If you have access to kindleunlimited, you can read in more details on how to adjust trades when things go wrong at amazon.com/dp/B0H7P6CQSG
.