Nov 8, 2024 – Nov 6, 2026
Buy & hold finished $926.70 ahead of the wheel (earned more: $4858.00 vs $3931.30).
Buy & hold Buy 100 shares and hold | Wheel strategy Puts → calls · keep premiums as cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Profit or loss | $4858.00 | $3931.30 |
| Largest drop | $4510.00 | $3225.00 |
This simulation ran 2024-11-08 to 2026-11-06 (49 trades, 10 cycles).
Simulated premium was $7,531. Simulated stock / assignment P&L was −$3,600. Combined realized P&L was $3,931.
Puts were assigned on 34.5% of put trades (10 of 29). Calls were assigned away on 45.0% of call trades (9 of 20).
This simulation’s wheel P&L ($3,931) trailed buy-and-hold P&L ($4,858) on the stored window.
Wheel drawdown was $3,225 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $3,225, from the 2026-02-11 peak to the 2026-10-30 trough, and had not got back to that peak by the end of the window. Buy-and-hold drawdown was $4,510 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $4,510, from the 2026-02-27 peak to the 2026-07-20 trough, and had not got back to that peak by the end of the window.
On the stored daily series the wheel was ahead of buy-and-hold on 72 of 500 days (14.4%). Its widest lead was $399 on 2024-11-15; its widest deficit was −$3,911 on 2026-01-28.
Wheel P&L peaked at $4,865 on 2026-02-11 and bottomed at −$198 on 2024-12-30. Buy-and-hold peaked at $7,682 on 2026-02-27 and bottomed at −$525 on 2024-12-30.
Of 49 priced entries, 24 used Black-Scholes fills from implied volatility, and 25 used historical option bars. The engine flagged this run as using modeled fills.
| Month | Wheel P&L | Wheel change in month | Buy-and-hold P&L | Wheel minus hold | Wheel below peak | Hold below peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-11 | $123 | — | −$136 | $259 | $0 | $136 |
| 2024-12 | −$184 | −$307 | −$511 | $327 | $468 | $518 |
| 2025-01 | $79 | $263 | −$6 | $85 | $205 | $46 |
| 2025-02 | $102 | $23 | $70 | $32 | $182 | $279 |
| 2025-03 | $381 | $279 | $695 | −$314 | $117 | $0 |
| 2025-04 | $512 | $131 | $999 | −$487 | $42 | $290 |
| 2025-05 | $822 | $311 | $1,163 | −$341 | $0 | $126 |
| 2025-06 | $895 | $73 | $1,304 | −$409 | $0 | $240 |
| 2025-07 | $949 | $54 | $1,262 | −$313 | $284 | $284 |
| 2025-08 | $1,599 | $650 | $2,415 | −$816 | $134 | $0 |
| 2025-09 | $1,788 | $189 | $3,738 | −$1,950 | $0 | $0 |
| 2025-10 | $1,828 | $40 | $3,304 | −$1,476 | $165 | $1,238 |
| 2025-11 | $2,990 | $1,162 | $4,421 | −$1,431 | $0 | $121 |
| 2025-12 | $2,933 | −$57 | $4,675 | −$1,742 | $57 | $552 |
| 2026-01 | $3,323 | $390 | $5,518 | −$2,195 | $80 | $1,796 |
| 2026-02 | $4,082 | $759 | $7,682 | −$3,600 | $783 | $0 |
| 2026-03 | $4,020 | −$62 | $5,275 | −$1,255 | $845 | $2,407 |
| 2026-04 | $2,753 | −$1,267 | $4,927 | −$2,174 | $2,112 | $2,755 |
| 2026-05 | $3,318 | $565 | $5,047 | −$1,729 | $1,547 | $2,635 |
| 2026-06 | $2,347 | −$971 | $3,643 | −$1,296 | $2,518 | $4,039 |
| 2026-07 | $2,653 | $306 | $3,508 | −$855 | $2,212 | $4,174 |
| 2026-08 | $3,241 | $588 | $5,949 | −$2,708 | $1,624 | $1,733 |
| 2026-09 | $2,546 | −$695 | $4,878 | −$2,332 | $2,319 | $2,804 |
| 2026-10 | $1,640 | −$906 | $3,807 | −$2,167 | $3,225 | $3,875 |
| 2026-11 | $2,691 | $1,051 | $4,858 | −$2,167 | $2,174 | $2,824 |
18 of 45 snapshots show simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold over their windows. GDX is not one of them.
Simulated premium equals 191.6% of the combined wheel P&L here; the median across snapshots with positive wheel P&L is 238.8%.
Compared with its precious-metals peers AEM, GOLD, NEM and WPM, GDX sits above the peer median put assignment rate of 31.8%. 0 of those 4 peers had simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold, while GDX did not.
The separate 21-Day Rule study for GDX uses a longer 35 DTE recipe, so it is not additive to this snapshot. On that study the managed arm finished +4.5 pp ahead of holding to expiry, against a median of +2.0 pp across tickers.
| Metric | GDX | Family median | Rank (highest first unless noted) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put assignment rate | 34.5% | 31.0% | 15th of 45 |
| Simulated premium | $7,531 | $10,128 | 26th of 45 |
| Wheel P&L | $3,931 | $2,828 | 19th of 45 |
| Buy-and-hold P&L | $4,858 | $3,901 | 20th of 45 |
| Wheel minus buy-and-hold | −$927 | −$495 | 26th of 45 |
| Ticker | Put assignment | Premium | Wheel P&L | Buy-and-hold P&L | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDX | 34.5% | $7,531 | $3,931 | $4,858 | Wheel behind |
| AEM | 15.4% | $16,317 | $3,067 | $10,773 | Wheel behind |
| GOLD | 41.7% | $4,820 | $420 | $605 | Wheel behind |
| NEM | 42.3% | $10,128 | $2,828 | $7,587 | Wheel behind |
| WPM | 21.9% | $11,256 | $2,756 | $7,149 | Wheel behind |
GDX 21-Day Rule study — the other published study on this ticker.
One fixed recipe: no price tape, no trade list, and model fills where quotes were missing
Requested 2024-11-08–2026-11-08; actual 2024-11-08–2026-11-06.
Pricing sources: 24 IV / 25 bar
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