Nov 8, 2024 – Nov 6, 2026
The wheel finished $639.22 ahead of buy & hold (wheel made money while buy & hold lost).
Buy & hold Buy 100 shares and hold | Wheel strategy Puts → calls · keep premiums as cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Profit or loss | $-257.00 | $382.22 |
| Largest drop | $451.00 | $304.00 |
This simulation ran 2024-11-08 to 2026-11-06 (49 trades, 4 cycles).
Simulated premium was $382. Simulated stock / assignment P&L was $0. Combined realized P&L was $382.
Puts were assigned on 12.1% of put trades (4 of 33). Calls were assigned away on 18.8% of call trades (3 of 16).
This simulation’s wheel P&L ($382) beat buy-and-hold P&L (−$257) on the stored window.
Wheel drawdown was $304 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $304, from the 2026-08-25 peak to the 2026-10-14 trough, and had not got back to that peak by the end of the window. Buy-and-hold drawdown was $451 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $451, from the 2025-09-22 peak to the 2026-10-14 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 436 of 500 days (87.2%). Its widest lead was $408 on 2025-04-08; its widest deficit was −$75 on 2025-09-22.
Wheel P&L peaked at $367 on 2026-08-25 and bottomed at −$73 on 2025-04-11. Buy-and-hold peaked at $152 on 2025-09-22 and bottomed at −$405 on 2025-04-08.
Of 49 priced entries, 25 used historical option bars, and 24 used Black-Scholes fills from realized volatility. 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 | $0 | — | $24 | −$24 | $0 | $0 |
| 2024-12 | $2 | $2 | −$115 | $117 | $0 | $139 |
| 2025-01 | $2 | $0 | −$8 | $10 | $0 | $32 |
| 2025-02 | $2 | $0 | $33 | −$31 | $0 | $0 |
| 2025-03 | $3 | $1 | −$91 | $94 | $0 | $124 |
| 2025-04 | $25 | $22 | −$120 | $145 | $119 | $153 |
| 2025-05 | $31 | $6 | −$23 | $54 | $113 | $56 |
| 2025-06 | $32 | $1 | $85 | −$53 | $112 | $0 |
| 2025-07 | $50 | $18 | $58 | −$8 | $94 | $27 |
| 2025-08 | $72 | $21 | $106 | −$34 | $72 | $15 |
| 2025-09 | $81 | $10 | $139 | −$58 | $63 | $13 |
| 2025-10 | $162 | $81 | $100 | $62 | $48 | $52 |
| 2025-11 | $138 | −$24 | $119 | $19 | $72 | $33 |
| 2025-12 | $162 | $24 | $83 | $79 | $48 | $69 |
| 2026-01 | $182 | $20 | $132 | $50 | $28 | $20 |
| 2026-02 | $214 | $32 | $92 | $122 | $0 | $60 |
| 2026-03 | $193 | −$21 | −$24 | $217 | $21 | $176 |
| 2026-04 | $292 | $99 | $58 | $234 | $52 | $94 |
| 2026-05 | $364 | $72 | $51 | $313 | $0 | $101 |
| 2026-06 | $358 | −$6 | $17 | $341 | $6 | $135 |
| 2026-07 | $317 | −$41 | −$32 | $349 | $47 | $184 |
| 2026-08 | $356 | $39 | $1 | $355 | $11 | $151 |
| 2026-09 | $102 | −$254 | −$259 | $361 | $265 | $411 |
| 2026-10 | $125 | $23 | −$237 | $362 | $242 | $389 |
| 2026-11 | $105 | −$20 | −$257 | $362 | $262 | $409 |
18 of 45 snapshots show simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold over their windows. HYG is one of them.
Simulated premium equals 100.0% of the combined wheel P&L here; the median across snapshots with positive wheel P&L is 238.8%.
Compared with its defensive, healthcare and income peers KO, O, PG and VNQ, HYG sits below the peer median put assignment rate of 40.0%. 3 of those 4 peers had simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold, as did HYG.
The separate 21-Day Rule study for HYG uses a longer 35 DTE recipe, so it is not additive to this snapshot. On that study the managed arm finished +0.9 pp ahead of holding to expiry, against a median of +2.0 pp across tickers.
| Metric | HYG | Family median | Rank (highest first unless noted) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put assignment rate | 12.1% | 31.0% | 43rd of 45 |
| Simulated premium | $382 | $10,128 | 45th of 45 |
| Wheel P&L | $382 | $2,828 | 41st of 45 |
| Buy-and-hold P&L | −$257 | $3,901 | 42nd of 45 |
| Wheel minus buy-and-hold | $639 | −$495 | 15th of 45 |
| Ticker | Put assignment | Premium | Wheel P&L | Buy-and-hold P&L | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HYG | 12.1% | $382 | $382 | −$257 | Wheel ahead |
| KO | 32.0% | $2,108 | $2,108 | $3,175 | Wheel behind |
| O | 41.7% | $1,629 | $879 | $153 | Wheel ahead |
| PG | 40.0% | $5,811 | $1,311 | −$231 | Wheel ahead |
| VNQ | 40.0% | $2,580 | $1,080 | −$15 | Wheel ahead |
HYG 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: 25 bar / 24 HV
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