Selling cash-secured puts on BA
Headline-driven vol on an industrial balance sheet. IV stays elevated because the tail risk is genuinely fat — regulatory and safety news can reprice the stock 10% on a Tuesday with no earnings in sight.
A cash-secured put is a limit order you get paid to place. Sell the Aug 28 $205 put on BA and you collect $335 today for the obligation to buy 100 shares at $205. Set aside $20,500 to honour it and the premium is 1.6% over 27 days — 22% annualized.
The trade, priced from the chain
27d to August 28, 2026| Leg | Qty | Price | Δ | IV | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SellAug 28 $205 put | 1 | $3.35 | -0.26 | 34% | +$335 |
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 $205 and zero to you, and you are paid $3.35 per share for taking it. "Cash-secured" simply means you hold the $20,500 required to buy the shares instead of leaning on margin. Same position, honest denominator.
At August 28, 2026: above $205 the put expires worthless and you keep $335 — that is the maximum this trade can make, $335. Below it you're assigned 100 shares at $205, with an effective cost basis of $201.65 once the credit is applied. That is 6.7% below where BA trades today.
The engine puts the probability of keeping the full credit at 77% on BA at $216.14 with 34% 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 BA at $205 — because roughly 77% 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 $20,500 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.
- The buying power this consumes is capital you were not planning to deploy elsewhere before the expiry.
Where the risk actually is
Max loss is $20,165 — the strike, less the credit, times 100, if BA goes to zero. That number is not theoretical on single names; it is simply unlikely. Size the position against that figure, not against the premium.
The real-world failure mode is a gap, and BA has the catalysts for one: delivery numbers, FAA and safety headlines, and earnings. A put sold 5.2% out of the money offers no protection at all against a move twice that size overnight.
Liquidity is a risk, not a convenience. The moment you most want out of a short-premium position is the moment the spread is widest, and the exit price you modelled at mid will not be available.
BA specifics: ladder, surface, and the implied move
The elevated implied vol on Boeing is not a mispricing waiting to be harvested; it is a market correctly charging for a distribution with a fat left tail and no calendar. Most short-premium frameworks assume the risk arrives on known dates and can be avoided by choosing an expiry. That assumption does not hold here, which is why the credits stay rich and why naked short premium is a poor idea on this name specifically.
BA's Aug 28 strikes are $5 apart near the money (2.31% 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. 5.8k contracts of open interest on Aug 28 is thin, and a structure that needs four separate fills will pay for it. 15 strikes on that expiry — 36% 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. Adequate but not deep; the usable ladder is short, and wide condors here are wider than the book really supports.
The surface is close to flat: only 1.1% between the 25-delta put and the 25-delta call. A flat skew means the usual put-side pickup is not there, so the case for selling downside rather than upside on this name is weaker than the habit suggests. The term structure is flat inside 1.5% between the two captured expiries, so there is no calendar edge to harvest and no event visibly priced into one month over the other.
At 34% ATM implied vol, the Aug 28 options are pricing a one-standard-deviation move of $20.15 over 27 days — roughly −9.3% to +9.3%, or $195.99 to $236.29. A short-premium structure here is a bet that 9.3% over 27 days is more than BA will actually use. That is the thesis, stated honestly.
The mistake this name punishes hardest: Assuming the risk lives on the earnings date. On Boeing it lives on every date.
Picking the strike on BA
Put delta is the shorthand for assignment odds: a 0.30-delta put is roughly a 30% chance of being assigned at expiry. On BA at $216.14, 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 BA: the Aug 28 $195 put at $1.42, 9% annualized |
| 0.20 – 0.30 Δ | The thetagang standard | Best balance of credit, cushion and assignment odds for a wheel entry.On BA: the Aug 28 $205 put at $3.35, 21% annualized |
| 0.40 – 0.50 Δ | Near the money | You want the shares. Largest credit, near coin-flip assignment.On BA: the Aug 28 $215 put at $7.45, 47% 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.
From the far strike to the near one, the premium below moves by a factor of 39.1. Where you sit on that curve is the trade. Open interest concentrates at $200 on this expiry, which is usually where the fills are cleanest.
| Strike | vs spot | Mid | Δ | IV | % of spot | Ann. | OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $180 | −16.7% | $0.41 | -0.04 | 40% | 0.2% | 3% | 61 |
| $190 | −12.1% | $0.78 | -0.08 | 36% | 0.4% | 5% | 87 |
| $195 | −9.8% | $1.42 | -0.13 | 35% | 0.7% | 9% | 189 |
| $200 | −7.5% | $2.19 | -0.19 | 35% | 1.0% | 14% | 428 |
| $205used | −5.2% | $3.35 | -0.26 | 34% | 1.5% | 21% | 204 |
| $210 | −2.8% | $5.10 | -0.35 | 34% | 2.4% | 32% | 188 |
| $215 | −0.5% | $7.45 | -0.45 | 34% | 3.4% | 47% | 204 |
| $220 | +1.8% | $10.15 | -0.55 | 34% | 4.7% | 63% | 34 |
| $230 | +6.4% | $16.05 | -0.73 | 34% | 7.4% | 100% | 38 |
BA puts expiring August 28, 2026· 15-min delayed capture · “Ann.” annualizes the mid as a percentage of spot over 27 days.
Managing the position
- 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.
- If assigned, do not panic-sell the shares. You are now at the covered-call stage of the wheel with a basis of $201.65.
- Decide the exit before the fill. A short-premium position with no stated profit target and no stated loss point is not a trade, it is a subscription to whatever the market decides.
- Roll for a credit or do not roll. A roll that costs money is a new trade financed by refusing to book a loss on the old one, and the accounting hides that from you.
Common mistakes
Selling puts on a stock you don't want
The premium looks the same on every ticker; the assignment doesn't. If you would not buy 100 shares of BA at $205 with your own thesis, this is a naked short-vol bet, not an entry.
Selling through earnings without meaning to
A 27-day put on BA may straddle delivery numbers. 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.
BA cash-secured put FAQ
What is my cost basis if I get assigned?
$205 minus the $3.35 credit, so $201.65 per share — 6.7% below BA's $216.14. Our wheel tracker carries that adjusted basis forward automatically through every subsequent call you write.
Is selling puts on BA safer than buying the shares?
Slightly, and only below the strike. You give up all upside above $205 in exchange for 6.7% of downside cushion. Whether that trade is good depends entirely on whether 34% implied vol is expensive relative to what BA actually does.
How much is BA expected to move by Aug 28?
The Aug 28 options imply a one-standard-deviation move of $20.15 — about 9.3% of the BA 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 BA option skew favouring puts or calls?
Puts. On the captured Aug 28 chain the 25-delta put implies 1.1% more volatility than the 25-delta call, which is the market charging more for downside protection than for upside exposure.
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 BA 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 BA strategies
- BA covered callSell upside on shares you already own and get paid for the cap.
- BA iron condorSell a range, buy the wings, collect if the stock stays put.
- BA bull call spreadBuy a call, sell a higher one — cheaper upside with a ceiling.
- BA bull put spreadSell a put spread below the market: credit now, defined risk.
- BA long straddleBuy the call and the put — pay for a move in either direction.
- BA long strangleOTM call plus OTM put — cheaper than a straddle, needs more move.
- BA long callDefined-risk upside with a deadline attached.
- BA long putDefined-risk downside, or insurance with an expiry date.
- BA 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
- AMD cash-secured put
- NFLX cash-secured put
- COIN cash-secured put
- PLTR cash-secured put
- SOFI cash-secured put
- F cash-secured put
- KO cash-secured put
- DIS cash-secured put
- INTC cash-secured put