Selling cash-secured puts on AMD
Semi-cycle beta with a liquid chain and IV that trades a clear 10–20 point premium to the index. It moves in sympathy with NVDA, which means correlated risk if you are short premium in both.
A cash-secured put is a limit order you get paid to place. Sell the Aug 28 $435 put on AMD and you collect $2,070 today for the obligation to buy 100 shares at $435. Set aside $43,500 to honour it and the premium is 4.8% over 27 days — 64% annualized.
The trade, priced from the chain
27d to August 28, 2026| Leg | Qty | Price | Δ | IV | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SellAug 28 $435 put | 1 | $20.70 | -0.31 | 77% | +$2,070 |
Every leg above is priced at the chain’s own quote — the identical number the builder will show you when you click through (last traded price), captured August 1, 2026 with a 15-minute delay. Only strikes whose print survives an implied-volatility check (within 20% of its own IV) and a no-arbitrage check across the ladder are priced here. Full methodology. Greeks, breakevens, max profit/loss and probability of profit are computed by OptionTracker’s engine at r = 4.2%. Educational analysis, not investment advice.
Yield on the capital this actually ties up
Annualized figures assume the same trade repeats every 27 days at the same premium. Nothing does. Use them to compare strikes and tickers, not to forecast a year.
How a cash-secured put works
Selling a put transfers the downside between $435 and zero to you, and you are paid $20.70 per share for taking it. "Cash-secured" simply means you hold the $43,500 required to buy the shares instead of leaning on margin. Same position, honest denominator.
At August 28, 2026: above $435 the put expires worthless and you keep $2,070 — that is the maximum this trade can make, $2,070. Below it you're assigned 100 shares at $435, with an effective cost basis of $414.3 once the credit is applied. That is 13.0% below where AMD trades today.
The engine puts the probability of keeping the full credit at 72% on AMD at $476.15 with 81% ATM implied vol on the Aug 28 expiry. High win rate, capped payoff, uncapped-to-zero loss — the risk profile of every short-premium trade. It is not free money; it is a rent cheque for underwriting someone else's insurance.
When it makes sense
- You genuinely want to own AMD at $435 — because roughly 72% of the time you won't get the shares, and the rest of the time you will, at the worst possible moment.
- You have the $43,500 genuinely available. A put "secured" by margin you also intend to use for something else is a naked put with a nicer name.
- It is the entry leg of the wheel: sell puts until assigned, then sell calls against the shares.
- Nothing in the expiry window is a scheduled unknown you have no view on. Selling premium over an event you have not thought about is selling a lottery ticket at retail.
Where the risk actually is
The real-world failure mode is a gap, and AMD has the catalysts for one: earnings, data-center guidance, and NVDA's print two weeks either side. A put sold 8.6% out of the money offers no protection at all against a move twice that size overnight.
Assignment is not the loss — being assigned at $435 when AMD is at $348 is. If you are running the wheel, that is the moment the plan is tested: you own shares at a basis of $414.3 and the market disagrees.
Early assignment is an operational risk rather than a market one: it arrives on a weekend, converts a defined structure into a stock position, and requires cash you may have allocated elsewhere.
What is different about doing this on AMD
The correlation is the risk nobody prices. Short premium on AMD and short premium on NVDA is one position with two tickets, and it gets tested on the same afternoon — AMD moves on NVDA's guidance as reliably as on its own. If both are in the book, size them as a single semi-cycle exposure and halve each.
AMD's Aug 28 strikes are $10 apart near the money (2.10% of spot). On a ladder that wide, "pick the 0.30 delta strike" resolves to whichever rung happens to be closest — sometimes not close at all. 7.9k contracts of open interest on Aug 28 is thin, and a structure that needs four separate fills will pay for it. 41 strikes on that expiry — 48% of the board — carry prints that agree with their own implied volatility and hold up across the ladder, and those are the strikes priced here. Good depth around the money, thinner in the wings than NVDA's; keep condor widths inside where the open interest actually is.
Skew is inverted: the 25-delta CALL implies 8.5% more vol than the put. That is the market pricing upside risk above downside risk — a squeeze, a takeover rumour, or a crowded short. Selling calls into an inverted skew pays better than usual and is riskier than usual for exactly the same reason. The term structure is backwardated — Aug 28 implies 6.0% MORE vol than the following month. That is the signature of a dated event inside the front month, and it is the strongest argument for picking the expiry that sits behind it.
At 81% ATM implied vol, the Aug 28 options are pricing a one-standard-deviation move of $104.82 over 27 days — roughly −22.0% to +22.0%, or $371.33 to $580.97. A short-premium structure here is a bet that 22.0% over 27 days is more than AMD will actually use. That is the thesis, stated honestly.
What actually goes wrong here, as opposed to in general: Selling AMD premium as a diversifier from an NVDA position. It is the same trade at a higher beta.
Picking the strike on AMD
Put delta is the shorthand for assignment odds: a 0.30-delta put is roughly a 30% chance of being assigned at expiry. On AMD at $476.15, here is what the bands buy you:
| Band | What it means | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| 0.10 – 0.16 Δ | Deep OTM, ~1 in 8 assignment | Pure premium harvesting. Small credits; one bad gap erases many wins.On AMD: the Aug 28 $395 put at $9.43, 27% annualized |
| 0.20 – 0.30 Δ | The thetagang standard | Best balance of credit, cushion and assignment odds for a wheel entry.On AMD: the Aug 28 $415 put at $15.13, 43% annualized |
| 0.40 – 0.50 Δ | Near the money | You want the shares. Largest credit, near coin-flip assignment.On AMD: the Aug 28 $475 put at $39.00, 111% annualized |
| ITM | You will almost certainly be assigned | A synthetic buy order with extra steps. Compare against just buying the stock. |
The live Aug 28 put chain below shows real deltas and mids from the capture, with each strike's credit expressed as a percentage of the cash you must set aside. Compare the annualized column across strikes before you decide — the curve is rarely linear.
The premium varies 4.1× across the nine strikes below. Everything the delta table is trying to tell you is visible in that gradient. Open interest concentrates at $435 on this expiry, which is usually where the fills are cleanest.
| Strike | vs spot | Mid | Δ | IV | % of spot | Ann. | OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $395 | −17.0% | $9.43 | -0.17 | 78% | 2.0% | 27% | 269 |
| $405 | −14.9% | $11.45 | -0.20 | 79% | 2.4% | 33% | 115 |
| $415 | −12.8% | $15.13 | -0.23 | 77% | 3.2% | 43% | 398 |
| $425 | −10.7% | $18.02 | -0.27 | 77% | 3.8% | 51% | 194 |
| $435used | −8.6% | $20.70 | -0.31 | 77% | 4.3% | 59% | 439 |
| $445 | −6.5% | $23.28 | -0.34 | 76% | 4.9% | 66% | 100 |
| $455 | −4.4% | $25.32 | -0.39 | 76% | 5.3% | 72% | 231 |
| $465 | −2.3% | $31.10 | -0.43 | 75% | 6.5% | 88% | 121 |
| $475 | −0.2% | $39.00 | -0.47 | 76% | 8.2% | 111% | 88 |
AMD puts expiring August 28, 2026· 15-min delayed capture · “Ann.” annualizes the mid as a percentage of spot over 27 days.
Managing the position
- Take profits at 50%. Half the credit in well under half the days-to-expiry is the standard exit, and it beats holding to zero on a risk-adjusted basis because the last $10.35 per share carries the most gamma.
- Never close at $0.01 to "keep the streak". If the option is worth a penny, let it expire — that penny is a commission and a distorted P/L record. Track the close at $0.00, which is what actually happened.
- Duration beats delta for controlling risk. Selling a 45-day option and closing it at 21 days puts you in the flattest part of the gamma curve; selling a 7-day option at the same delta puts you in the steepest.
- Do not add to a tested position to lower the average. Averaging into short premium works right up until the one time it does not, and that time is the one that matters.
Common mistakes
Counting the credit as return on the credit
$2,070 on $43,500 of secured cash is 4.8%, not a big number. Always divide by the capital the trade actually locks up.
Selling through earnings without meaning to
A 27-day put on AMD may straddle earnings. If the credit looks unusually rich, that is why — check the calendar before assuming you found an edge.
Trading the annualized number
Annualizing a 7-day credit assumes 52 identical weeks, none of which include the one that goes wrong. It is a comparison unit, not a return.
AMD cash-secured put FAQ
How much cash do I need to sell a AMD put?
Fully securing the Aug 28 $435 put takes $43,500 per contract — the strike times 100. Brokers will let you sell it on far less margin; that changes the risk, not the obligation.
Is selling puts on AMD safer than buying the shares?
Slightly, and only below the strike. You give up all upside above $435 in exchange for 13.0% of downside cushion. Whether that trade is good depends entirely on whether 81% implied vol is expensive relative to what AMD actually does.
How much is AMD expected to move by Aug 28?
The Aug 28 options imply a one-standard-deviation move of $104.82 — about 22.0% of the AMD share price — over the 27 days to expiry. That is the market's estimate, not a forecast: roughly a third of the time the actual move is larger.
Is AMD option skew favouring puts or calls?
Calls. The 25-delta call implies 8.5% more volatility than the 25-delta put on the Aug 28 chain — an inverted skew, usually a sign of squeeze or event risk to the upside.
Build it yourself
Everything above is one construction at one moment. Open it in the builder to drag strikes along the ladder, scrub the expiry, and watch max profit, breakevens and probability of profit recompute live against the real AMD chain — free, no account.
Related reading
- What a cash-secured put actually paysThe annualized-return column is the one everybody screenshots. It is also the one that tells you least. Here is the whole ladder — return, probability, breakeven, and the loss that takes six winners to repair.
- The wheel strategy, with real numbersEveryone can recite the four steps. Almost nobody can tell you what a completed cycle returned on the capital it tied up. Here is one, priced off a real chain and folded by the same engine that runs our tracker.
- Why closing at $0.01 is wrongRecording an expired option as a close at $0.01 costs almost nothing in dollars. What it does to assignment history, cost basis and your recorded win rate is a $599 hole in the middle of a wheel — here is the arithmetic.
Other AMD strategies
- AMD covered callSell upside on shares you already own and get paid for the cap.
- AMD iron condorSell a range, buy the wings, collect if the stock stays put.
- AMD bull call spreadBuy a call, sell a higher one — cheaper upside with a ceiling.
- AMD bull put spreadSell a put spread below the market: credit now, defined risk.
- AMD long straddleBuy the call and the put — pay for a move in either direction.
- AMD long strangleOTM call plus OTM put — cheaper than a straddle, needs more move.
- AMD long callDefined-risk upside with a deadline attached.
- AMD long putDefined-risk downside, or insurance with an expiry date.
- AMD calendar call spreadSell the near-dated call, buy the far one — rent time twice.
Cash-Secured Put on other tickers
- SPY cash-secured put
- QQQ cash-secured put
- IWM cash-secured put
- AAPL cash-secured put
- NVDA cash-secured put
- TSLA cash-secured put
- MSFT cash-secured put
- AMZN cash-secured put
- META cash-secured put
- GOOGL cash-secured put
- NFLX cash-secured put
- COIN cash-secured put
- PLTR cash-secured put
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- F cash-secured put
- KO cash-secured put
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- INTC cash-secured put