Time to learn more...options (Page 4 of 5)
Moderate-Length Barrel Evangelist
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@Morgan321 I’ve done that before but realized quickly I’d rather sell shorter dated puts at more aggressive strikes and just manage if needed. The returns are larger with minimal extra effort. That said if I were a less active trader I’d probably use a similar strategy. The key is (in a taxable account) that short option gains are treated as short term so you need to make sure that you’re beating benchmarks after taxes. It would probably require being a bit more aggressive than your example strikes to hit it. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: Is anybody selling long term (6 months out to 1-2 years) puts at very low strikes with the goal of collecting premiums but not executing? As an example using the three stocks I've been commonly selling options on, you can get a 3% premium selling a 9 month put on: IBIT at $10 (equal to bitcoin at $18k) PLTR at $40 SOFI at $5 That's a 4% annual return added to the 3.5% yield on the cash securing them for a total of 7.5% yield. I get the seeing the future aspect and don't need to hear "it depends on what you think the stock will do in the future". These three examples seem like pretty safe bets and a good way to diversify - the strikes are all on the order of 30% of current prices and I would buy loads of all three at those strikes. They are also not directly overlapping industries - any of them could experience a black swan event without impacting the others. If the broader stock market drops by 70% in 9 months or less then we've all got bigger problems to deal with. I do, but a little higher delta and shorter term. I like to be 6-8 delta and roughly 120 DTE or a little less. I'm just looking to make 50% and just stacking small wins while offsetting a few deltas of risk elsewhere. I stick to index options for a few reasons. Individual stocks have a risk of bankruptcy or takeover, the options will be regular Reg-T margin and they will be short term capitol gains. Index options are much tamer, without the bk/to risk and if you use /ES or /MES they use SPAN margin and are taxed 60% long term 40% short term. The longer options don't have any better theta burn, and they have more risk than the 2-4 month options, along with less gamma. With the 4 month options normal market fluctuations can get me to my profit target along with theta burn and sliding down the risk smile. I like to close or roll and positions by 3 weeks to expiration because at that point the gamma risk outweighs the theta decay. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: Sold SOFI $15 cash secured puts for May 15th and received $0.90. Works out to 6% premium in just over 2 months if unassigned. Contracts had a delta of .22 when sold. |
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Around 2 months ago I sold SOFI puts at $19 that expired last week. The week before expiration I was a bit nervous due to the market downturn so I put an order to close them at a few cents profit. Markets spiked on Thursday just enough for the orders to hit. Glad they did since they would've been red as soon as they executed and even more red this week. Still have a bunch of puts I sold at $14 for May (after the next earnings call). |
On the first page I recommend the YouTube channel TJ The Wheel Deal for learning options, specifically selling them. Unfortunately sometime later he got kicked off Robinhood and out of spite he deleted a lot of content that showed him trading live on the platform. He recently made a cameo on one of Amit Kukreja’s livestreams and talked options for over a hour. It’s been edited into a standalone video and is worth watching for anyone interested in the topic. I credit what I learned from TJ’s channel for allowing me to replace my income by selling options and retire decades early.  Talking OPTIONS TRADING with AMIT! |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: Still have a bunch of puts I sold at $14 for May (after the next earnings call). I followed my #1 rule in trading - never regret taking a profit. I guess to paraphrase I lost confidence that SOFI will significantly buck broader market down trend over the next 6ish weeks. Will check back in come earnings time to see if I made the right call! ETA: Should not have closed those puts! But see rule #1 above. |
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More fake and gay© from SOFI? Beat estimates but stock craters because they expect "only" normal expansion? P/E is 30-40 depending on how you calculate? A bit high but not wildly extravagant. My $21 short put is safe, only problem is I wanted it to execute! I only have 100 shares from a single put that executed in February before the expiration (it would've expired out of the money). Not the end of the world, I'll just keep rolling the call for a while and see how it goes. A good learning experience. SoFi Technologies (SOFI) reported record Q1 2026 results on April 29, 2026, with GAAP net revenue of $1.1billion (up 43% year-over-year) and a doubled EPS of $0.12. While the company beat earnings estimates, shares fell sharply due to a cautious Q2 outlook predicting a, 30% growth slowdown, signaling a transition to normalized expansion. |
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PLTR earnings after the close today. I sold some $110 puts expiring in June a few weeks ago, they're nicely in the green and I'm thinking about closing some today. ETA: closed a couple as it would be a lot of shares if executed. Kept two and considering rolling out a month and up to $120 Not opposed to owning PLTR, just not too much! |
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Originally Posted By Procat: ……use the freed up funds to sell CSPs on NVDA into earnings. Sold NVDA 5/22 $215 cash secured puts on 5/15 for $4.40. They’re down to $2.57 as I type this with earnings only a few hours away. Going to let them ride ETA: Bought back the NVDA CSPs on the last day for $0.18. Didn’t want to waste the theta of a 3 day weekend for funds to settle. Used the freed up funds to sell PLTR $115 CSPs for July expiration for $2.25. Normally I’d probably be more aggressive with the strike but I already have some at $120. |
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It came up in the spacex IPO thread and thought it belonged here..... I've been buying some xovr (20% in spacex) and immediately selling calls on the shares. Premiums are very high and, assuming you are confident spacex will climb through their IPO, it seems like a pretty safe bet. |
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Anyone buying SOFI leaps? Im interested, but have no experience |
Look, yes, I have banged HUNDREDS of broads. INTERNATIONALLY. But know this - I wrap my rascal, TWO TIMES, cuz I like it to be joyless and without sensation. It's a way of punishing supermodels.
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@Morgan321 If you like that strategy you should look into EchoStar / $SATS. They have a market cap of $36B but own 2-3% of SpaceX that they got in exchange for spectrum licenses. The value of that equity is estimated at $25B depending on what valuation you put on SpaceX. S&P 500 component company so not an ETF with any management fees. Options premiums are good. |
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Originally Posted By The_Master_Shake: Anyone buying SOFI leaps? Im interested, but have no experience I have a bunch of call debit spreads out in 2027 and 2028. I’ve looked into buying more but since the CEO talked about buying calls the premiums have gone up. If the stock ends up going below $15 this summer and the options premium calms down I might revisit the idea. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: @Morgan321 If you like that strategy you should look into EchoStar / $SATS. They have a market cap of $36B but own 2-3% of SpaceX that they got in exchange for spectrum licenses. The value of that equity is estimated at $25B depending on what valuation you put on SpaceX. S&P 500 component company so not an ETF with any management fees. Options premiums are good. Interested, sats premiums are a bit higher than xovr. I'm only looking a couple months past the IPO so I'm not concerned about the expense ratio. Help me out on my logic here - The price of xovr will (ignoring their other holdings) directly track spacex but deleveraged by 1/5 since 20% of xovr is spacex. ie. spacex doubles means xovr is up 20%. sats is a ho-hum communications company with the attraction being they own slightly over 2% of spacex, and those spacex shares are currently worth more than half of the sats market cap. The presumption is that, after the IPO, sats will be some combination of flush with cash (from selling their spacex) or simply be valued higher (because they own over 2% of spacex)? Doesn't this require the market to also agree to that (ie. more demand is required to push the price higher)? Why would sats be more attractive post-IPO than simply buying spacex shares? It feels like a mstr setup - the company itsself doesn't matter, only the corporate property? |
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The bull case for $SATS also includes the fact that they got included in the S&P back in March and never really got the index effect. They are up around 20% since but a lot of that can probably be attributed to SpaceX. To be clear this is all just a trade / cash grab for me. I plan on exiting in a few weeks. I have serious reservations about the SpaceX IPO. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: The bull case for $SATS also includes the fact that they got included in the S&P back in March and never really got the index effect. They are up around 20% since but a lot of that can probably be attributed to SpaceX. To be clear this is all just a trade / cash grab for me. I plan on exiting in a few weeks. I have serious reservations about the SpaceX IPO. I am also in it for the cash grab. I like spacex and want to own it, but not an some of the insane prices people are speculating about. Just have to wait and see what pans out. |
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@The_Master_Shake Since $SOFI pulled back I started looking into LEAPS again. As I stated before I already have some June 2028 $25/ $30 call debit spreads. I ran the numbers after the close today (using the closing prices) on various combinations in the $25-$40 range. I still want to use spreads as I don’t feel like the stock is capable of a parabolic run making long calls not worth the expense. Going out to $40 on the short call; either $25/$40 or $30/$40 definitely increases your potential return (approximately 7x or 8x respectively) but it raises your breakeven enough that I keep coming back to the $25/$30. Using the closing bid & ask prices you could buy the $25 call for $4.90 and recoup $3.85 by selling the $30 call for a net debit if $1.05. Might be able to buy it cheaper with a limit order. That’s nearly a 400% return in just over 2 years if it finishes fully in the money. Being that $SOFI has been as high as $32.xx already it’s not outrageous to suspect it will hit a new ATH in the next 2 years. Placed a limit order to double my spread position tomorrow at $1. If it fills I may place an order to triple the position even lower and see if it fills. ETA Order filled at $1 right at the open. Placed a limit order to buy more at $0.85 ETA2 $0.85 order filled the next day |
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Originally Posted By Procat: @The_Master_Shake Since $SOFI pulled back I started looking into LEAPS again. As I stated before I already have some June 2028 $25/ $30 call debit spreads. I ran the numbers after the close today (using the closing prices) on various combinations in the $25-$40 range. I still want to use spreads as I don’t feel like the stock is capable of a parabolic run making long calls not worth the expense. Going out to $40 on the short call; either $25/$40 or $30/$40 definitely increases your potential return (approximately 7x or 8x respectively) but it raises your breakeven enough that I keep coming back to the $25/$30. Using the closing bid & ask prices you could buy the $25 call for $4.90 and recoup $3.85 by selling the $30 call for a net debit if $1.05. Might be able to buy it cheaper with a limit order. That’s nearly a 400% return in just over 2 years if it finishes fully in the money. Being that $SOFI has been as high as $32.xx already it’s not outrageous to suspect it will hit a new ATH in the next 2 years. Placed a limit order to double my spread position tomorrow at $1. If it fills I may place an order to triple the position even lower and see if it fills. I read this twice and im still trying to follow!  I know about a week back Tevis showed the SOFI leaps he bought and I think its a solid bet to mirror End of the day there will be a time in the next year when the interest rate play becomes popular again. SOFI is going to be an awesome vehicle for this purpose and I know i can get more exposure with options than shares Ill be looking into it just need a free weekend! |
Look, yes, I have banged HUNDREDS of broads. INTERNATIONALLY. But know this - I wrap my rascal, TWO TIMES, cuz I like it to be joyless and without sensation. It's a way of punishing supermodels.
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Originally Posted By The_Master_Shake: I read this twice and im still trying to follow! Options trading has its own nomenclature so it can sound like a foreign language if you’re not familiar. In the example I gave: looking at the June 16th 2028 call chain you’d be buying the $25 call and selling the $30 for the net debit of $1.05 between the $25 call’s ask and the $30 call’s bid. (These prices are based on closing prices 6/3/26 and will be different one way or another when the market opens in the morning) If on 6/16/28 if SOFI is $30 or higher both contracts will exercise and you net the $5 between strikes. If it doesn’t hit $30 your breakeven would be $26.05 ($25 call plus the $1.05 you paid for the spread). Turning $1.05 into $5 works out to a 376% gain if my math is correct. |
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Happy PDT Independence Day, everyone! Options trading just got a little bit better. I sold an SPX iron condor in my margin account this morning. 61 minutes later I covered for a decent profit. I got dinged for PDT. Apparently E*Trade is not switching over until the 9th. So only 5 more days to go.😀 |
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Originally Posted By grendelbane: Happy PDT Independence Day, everyone! Options trading just got a little bit better. I sold an SPX iron condor in my margin account this morning. 61 minutes later I covered for a decent profit. I got dinged for PDT. Apparently E*Trade is not switching over until the 9th. So only 5 more days to go.😀 I’ve made plenty of quick moves in Fidelity accounts and never heard a peep from them about it. Under the old rules you just had to have at least $25k wasn't it? Only time I ever got slapped by them was using margin as collateral for cash secured puts. Their app let me do it so I figured it was ok. It was fun until they froze my account and their IT department patched it. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: I’ve made plenty of quick moves in Fidelity accounts and never heard a peep from them about it. Under the old rules you just had to have at least $25k wasn't it? Only time I ever got slapped by them was using margin as collateral for cash secured puts. Their app let me do it so I figured it was ok. It was fun until they froze my account and their IT department patched it. I always had more than $25k and I got dinged every time. I used to listen to Tom Sosnoff on Tasty Trade and he was always complaining about it. I would think he would have that much, but I don’t know. Any way I just have to wait until the 9th. Then the day will definitely be brighter. |
Moderate-Length Barrel Evangelist
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Now fellate me, as I eat this expensive ham.
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@Procat I've consistently been losing $100k/day this week lol I wish I would have sold more LUNR and RKLB at the top but that's all part of the game. I did however take the 5% of my RKLB position I sold and today bought another 1,000 shares of SOFI and also purchased my first contract. Since I only have level 1 options I attempted to parity Tevis trade (but a fraction of it) I got 25 SOFI Jan 21-28 Calls at $25 for $9K. I was going to buy 100 but I figured for my first time I shouldn't get too stupid
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Look, yes, I have banged HUNDREDS of broads. INTERNATIONALLY. But know this - I wrap my rascal, TWO TIMES, cuz I like it to be joyless and without sensation. It's a way of punishing supermodels.
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Originally Posted By The_Master_Shake: I got 25 SOFI Jan 21-28 Calls at $25 for $9K. I was going to buy 100 but I figured for my first time I shouldn't get too stupid Cool. Just keep in mind you don’t have to hold to expiration. Hypothetically if $SOFI rallies to $25 in a month you could sell them for a profit, sell enough contracts to pull your original $9k out or sell covered calls against them (referred to as poor man’s covered call). I hear you on $RKLB. When the valuation started pushing $80B I figured it’d pull back so I sold $130 calls as a hedge. I was sweating hard when it got up to $150 but now it’s looking like my original hunch was correct. In hindsight I wish I would have bought puts instead of selling the calls. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: Cool. Just keep in mind you don’t have to hold to expiration. Hypothetically if $SOFI rallies to $25 in a month you could sell them for a profit, sell enough contracts to pull your original $9k out or sell covered calls against them (referred to as poor man’s covered call). I hear you on $RKLB. When the valuation started pushing $80B I figured it’d pull back so I sold $130 calls as a hedge. I was sweating hard when it got up to $150 but now it’s looking like my original hunch was correct. In hindsight I wish I would have bought puts instead of selling the calls. You know I had this gut feeling we were getting toppy This time I listened and sold 20% of my LUNR position ($43.96 which was awesome) and 5% of my RKLB position at $148.75. . . . but held back a bit because I told myself the "buy the rumor sell the news" approach wouldn't take place for another 2 weeks I then used a bit of that to buy more SOFI shares and now these calls. I'm excited for my first calls. Basically used Fidelity's version "wizard" to walk through the buying process. The bid vs ask part was a little confusing but this is going to fun I think 
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Look, yes, I have banged HUNDREDS of broads. INTERNATIONALLY. But know this - I wrap my rascal, TWO TIMES, cuz I like it to be joyless and without sensation. It's a way of punishing supermodels.
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On the big market tank Friday I closed all the covered calls I had sold on xovr at a big profit. It’s up today and I could sell them again but I think I’m going to wait a couple day or three and see what sort of SpaceX news comes out this week. Nothing major, but I’m making myself sell more aggressive options and treating the option like a commodity and playing the volatility. (rather than selling ultra safe options with the intent of only collecting premiums) |
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Just a thought, thinking out loud here… With the SpaceX IPO coming up there is a ton of cash sitting in brokerage accounts waiting on allocation news. Some brokers require liquid cash to participate and even those who don’t most of their customers probably don’t know that they didn’t have to raise the cash ahead of time. When the allocation numbers come out lots of people are going to have a decision to make: buy the shares they didn’t get in the open market or deploy the cash elsewhere. With lots of tech names pulling back lately there are some very attractive opportunities for those with dry powder i.e. NVDA @$200. We may very likely see a decent recovery next week as at least some of the sidelined money flows into companies other than SpaceX. I’m playing this hunch by buying to close lots of my covered calls that have already lost most of their value. There also appear so be some decent opportunities for cash secured puts if someone had positions they wouldn’t mind adding to. Regardless of what happens in the next week it will be entertaining to say the least. |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: On the big market tank Friday I closed all the covered calls I had sold on xovr at a big profit. Two weeks ago an August call at $20 was selling for about $420, now it's selling for half that despite the share price having increased. That's far more than expected from the time decay and opposite what it should do as a result of the share price increasing. I want to continue selling calls though because I think the spacex tide will lift xovr, but I'm hesitant due to the big drop in premiums. I'm not smart enough to know whether premiums drive demand or demand drives premiums. It could be both? |
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Originally Posted By Morgan321: Been looking at selling another round of calls against my xovr shares but something interesting I noticed is that the premiums for the same call have significantly declined over just a couple weeks. SPCX proxies have been behaving oddly. I suspect lots were priced on the chance the stock went parabolic after the IPO. $SATS was trading below the NAV of its SPCX equity and like $XORV the options premiums have eased up. |
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Originally Posted By Procat: SPCX proxies have been behaving oddly. I got a small amount of Bptrx a couple months ago after reading about it here. I wasn’t convinced at first, but it has performed more inline with its spacex holdings - it was up 5-6% both Friday and today. Also read an article today about baron buying an obscene amount more of spacex stock. It has a small fee if you sell within 90 days so I’ll probably dump it at the 90 day mark. I’ll probably sell very aggressive calls on all my xovr with the intention of them executing and put the money elsewhere. |
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Originally Posted By grendelbane: Looks like SPCX options trading will be a thing today. Probably sets a speed record. You can buy $150 options 3 months out and the premium is $15, so either you profit $1500 (40% yield) or you buy shares at $135. Everybody wanted more IPO shares at $135 so why wouldn't anybody take this deal? |
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Originally Posted By Procat: SPCX proxies have been behaving oddly....... $SATS was trading below the NAV of its SPCX equity and like $XORV the options premiums have eased up. Originally Posted By Procat: SPCX proxies have been behaving oddly....... $SATS was trading below the NAV of its SPCX equity and like $XORV the options premiums have eased up. I closed all my xovr calls and sold all my shares. Netted almost 5% on the shares and about 6% on the calls. Seems like nothing, but just over 10% in 3 weeks is great by my standards! FYSA: apparently many brokerages charge a fee to buy xovr (and other oddball ETFs). Fidelity's customer support says they charge the fee (5% with a max of $100) but I was never charged the fee. Here is the Fidelity list of funds they charge a service fee for. Originally Posted By grendelbane: Premiums are indeed crazy.  ETA: Got cold feet this morning on the $150 puts so I put in an order to close them and it hit - made about $40 per call overnight. If you want to be a long term holder of space x the 1-2-3 month premiums on puts at/below the $135 IPO price are very attractive and I think have a real chance of executing... |
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Originally Posted By Procat: Bought a pile of SPCX $210/$215 call debit spreads for September for $1.50. The volatility is high enough that I’m seeing very conservative limit orders fill if you let them sit long enough. Freed up some cash in my rollover IRA and sold some $100 and $120 space x puts for July. Premiums plus interest on the cash works out to about 14% and 17% yield respectively and I'd happily buy spacex at those prices so it seems like a safe bet. I can't do call debit spreads despite having adequate cash - I applied for tier 2 options to try them out. I dumped my BPTRX because the time for the short term trading fee has passed. It served it's purpose of capturing the spacex tide - will be about 19% profit in 2 months. |