Nov 8, 2024 – Nov 6, 2026
Buy & hold finished $2259.55 ahead of the wheel (earned more: $14196.00 vs $11936.45).
Buy & hold Buy 100 shares and hold | Wheel strategy Puts → calls · keep premiums as cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Profit or loss | $14196.00 | $11936.45 |
| Largest drop | $12346.00 | $9912.31 |
This simulation ran 2024-11-08 to 2026-11-06 (51 trades, 5 cycles).
Simulated premium was $21,936. Simulated stock / assignment P&L was −$10,000. Combined realized P&L was $11,936.
Puts were assigned on 12.5% of put trades (5 of 40). Calls were assigned away on 36.4% of call trades (4 of 11).
This simulation’s wheel P&L ($11,936) trailed buy-and-hold P&L ($14,196) on the stored window.
Wheel drawdown was $9,912 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $9,912, from the 2025-02-14 peak to the 2025-04-08 trough, and got back to that peak on 2025-11-07. Buy-and-hold drawdown was $12,346 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $12,346, from the 2025-02-19 peak to the 2025-04-08 trough, and got back to that peak on 2025-06-24.
On the stored daily series the wheel was ahead of buy-and-hold on 107 of 500 days (21.4%). Its widest lead was $3,650 on 2025-02-27; its widest deficit was −$16,169 on 2026-06-02.
Wheel P&L peaked at $12,156 on 2026-08-04 and bottomed at −$7,650 on 2025-04-08. Buy-and-hold peaked at $24,552 on 2026-10-06 and bottomed at −$9,808 on 2025-04-08.
Of 51 priced entries, 10 used Black-Scholes fills from implied volatility, 27 used historical option bars, and 14 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 | $552 | — | −$440 | $992 | $0 | $440 |
| 2024-12 | $1,142 | $590 | −$291 | $1,433 | $0 | $2,694 |
| 2025-01 | $2,011 | $868 | $815 | $1,196 | $0 | $1,588 |
| 2025-02 | $580 | −$1,431 | −$597 | $1,177 | $1,683 | $3,135 |
| 2025-03 | −$2,364 | −$2,943 | −$4,522 | $2,158 | $4,626 | $7,060 |
| 2025-04 | −$1,792 | $572 | −$3,867 | $2,075 | $4,055 | $6,405 |
| 2025-05 | −$783 | $1,009 | $497 | −$1,280 | $3,046 | $2,041 |
| 2025-06 | −$509 | $274 | $3,750 | −$4,259 | $2,772 | $0 |
| 2025-07 | −$73 | $436 | $5,087 | −$5,160 | $2,336 | $313 |
| 2025-08 | $677 | $750 | $5,626 | −$4,949 | $1,586 | $994 |
| 2025-09 | $1,119 | $442 | $8,623 | −$7,504 | $1,143 | $183 |
| 2025-10 | $2,247 | $1,128 | $11,493 | −$9,246 | $15 | $670 |
| 2025-11 | $5,345 | $3,098 | $10,511 | −$5,166 | $0 | $1,652 |
| 2025-12 | $5,565 | $220 | $10,017 | −$4,452 | $207 | $2,146 |
| 2026-01 | $6,951 | $1,386 | $10,773 | −$3,822 | $0 | $1,390 |
| 2026-02 | $7,087 | $136 | $9,315 | −$2,228 | $939 | $2,848 |
| 2026-03 | $5,543 | −$1,544 | $6,304 | −$761 | $2,483 | $5,859 |
| 2026-04 | $5,818 | $275 | $15,360 | −$9,542 | $3,026 | $0 |
| 2026-05 | $7,033 | $1,215 | $22,417 | −$15,384 | $1,811 | $0 |
| 2026-06 | $9,424 | $2,391 | $22,226 | −$12,802 | $0 | $976 |
| 2026-07 | $8,570 | −$854 | $17,385 | −$8,815 | $1,450 | $5,817 |
| 2026-08 | $10,216 | $1,646 | $20,262 | −$10,046 | $1,940 | $2,940 |
| 2026-09 | $11,006 | $790 | $22,563 | −$11,557 | $1,150 | $769 |
| 2026-10 | $7,485 | −$3,521 | $17,635 | −$10,150 | $4,671 | $6,917 |
| 2026-11 | $4,046 | −$3,439 | $14,196 | −$10,150 | $8,110 | $10,356 |
18 of 45 snapshots show simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold over their windows. QQQ is not one of them.
Simulated premium equals 183.8% of the combined wheel P&L here; the median across snapshots with positive wheel P&L is 238.8%.
Compared with its index and broad sector ETF peers DIA, IWM, SPY and XLI, QQQ sits below the peer median put assignment rate of 14.8%. 2 of those 4 peers had simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold, while QQQ did not.
The separate 21-Day Rule study for QQQ uses a longer 35 DTE recipe, so it is not additive to this snapshot. On that study the managed arm finished +3.4 pp ahead of holding to expiry, against a median of +2.0 pp across tickers.
| Metric | QQQ | Family median | Rank (highest first unless noted) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put assignment rate | 12.5% | 31.0% | 42nd of 45 |
| Simulated premium | $21,936 | $10,128 | 12th of 45 |
| Wheel P&L | $11,936 | $2,828 | 7th of 45 |
| Buy-and-hold P&L | $14,196 | $3,901 | 4th of 45 |
| Wheel minus buy-and-hold | −$2,260 | −$495 | 33rd of 45 |
| Ticker | Put assignment | Premium | Wheel P&L | Buy-and-hold P&L | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ | 12.5% | $21,936 | $11,936 | $14,196 | Wheel behind |
| DIA | 11.4% | $9,243 | $5,743 | $7,211 | Wheel behind |
| IWM | 20.0% | $10,257 | $3,757 | $3,555 | Wheel ahead |
| SPY | 10.5% | $14,816 | $11,316 | $13,710 | Wheel behind |
| XLI | 18.2% | $4,742 | $4,992 | $2,058 | Wheel ahead |
QQQ 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: 10 IV / 27 bar / 14 HV
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