Nov 8, 2024 – Nov 6, 2026
The wheel finished $7548.08 ahead of buy & hold (earned more: $28010.08 vs $20462.00).
Buy & hold Buy 100 shares and hold | Wheel strategy Puts → calls · keep premiums as cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Profit or loss | $20462.00 | $28010.08 |
| Largest drop | $22118.00 | $16052.00 |
This simulation ran 2024-11-08 to 2026-11-06 (51 trades, 9 cycles).
Simulated premium was $38,510. Simulated stock / assignment P&L was −$10,500. Combined realized P&L was $28,010.
Puts were assigned on 25.7% of put trades (9 of 35). Calls were assigned away on 50.0% of call trades (8 of 16).
This simulation’s wheel P&L ($28,010) beat buy-and-hold P&L ($20,462) on the stored window.
Wheel drawdown was $16,052 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $16,052, from the 2026-10-02 peak to the 2026-11-05 trough, and had not got back to that peak by the end of the window. Buy-and-hold drawdown was $22,118 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $22,118, from the 2026-06-22 peak to the 2026-11-05 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 209 of 500 days (41.8%). Its widest lead was $5,144 on 2025-02-27; its widest deficit was −$20,927 on 2026-06-22.
Wheel P&L peaked at $26,835 on 2026-10-02 and bottomed at −$3,632 on 2025-04-08. Buy-and-hold peaked at $40,957 on 2026-06-22 and bottomed at −$7,939 on 2025-04-08.
Of 51 priced entries, 9 used Black-Scholes fills from implied volatility, 27 used historical option bars, and 15 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 | −$468 | — | −$1,721 | $1,253 | $947 | $1,721 |
| 2024-12 | $348 | $816 | −$1,717 | $2,065 | $920 | $1,717 |
| 2025-01 | $1,253 | $904 | −$1,572 | $2,825 | $2,355 | $2,355 |
| 2025-02 | $366 | −$887 | −$2,657 | $3,023 | $3,242 | $3,440 |
| 2025-03 | −$480 | −$846 | −$4,787 | $4,307 | $4,088 | $5,570 |
| 2025-04 | −$304 | $176 | −$4,806 | $4,502 | $3,912 | $5,589 |
| 2025-05 | $847 | $1,151 | −$1,959 | $2,806 | $2,761 | $2,742 |
| 2025-06 | $1,265 | $418 | $1,954 | −$689 | $2,342 | $0 |
| 2025-07 | $2,355 | $1,089 | $2,944 | −$589 | $1,253 | $748 |
| 2025-08 | $4,378 | $2,024 | $3,095 | $1,283 | $69 | $1,163 |
| 2025-09 | $5,144 | $766 | $6,702 | −$1,558 | $0 | $0 |
| 2025-10 | $6,496 | $1,352 | $10,368 | −$3,872 | $0 | $559 |
| 2025-11 | $9,133 | $2,637 | $9,294 | −$161 | $0 | $1,633 |
| 2025-12 | $9,343 | $210 | $10,079 | −$736 | $999 | $1,397 |
| 2026-01 | $11,710 | $2,367 | $14,412 | −$2,702 | $0 | $1,406 |
| 2026-02 | $13,680 | $1,970 | $14,703 | −$1,023 | $0 | $1,979 |
| 2026-03 | $13,734 | $54 | $12,406 | $1,328 | $748 | $4,276 |
| 2026-04 | $14,494 | $760 | $24,738 | −$10,244 | $3,931 | $0 |
| 2026-05 | $17,515 | $3,021 | $33,959 | −$16,444 | $910 | $321 |
| 2026-06 | $22,280 | $4,765 | $39,655 | −$17,375 | $0 | $1,302 |
| 2026-07 | $20,008 | −$2,272 | $28,119 | −$8,111 | $4,172 | $12,838 |
| 2026-08 | $24,270 | $4,262 | $29,729 | −$5,459 | $0 | $11,228 |
| 2026-09 | $25,915 | $1,645 | $34,966 | −$9,051 | $0 | $5,991 |
| 2026-10 | $18,259 | −$7,656 | $26,315 | −$8,056 | $8,576 | $14,642 |
| 2026-11 | $12,406 | −$5,853 | $20,462 | −$8,056 | $14,429 | $20,495 |
18 of 45 snapshots show simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold over their windows. SMH is one of them.
Simulated premium equals 137.5% of the combined wheel P&L here; the median across snapshots with positive wheel P&L is 238.8%.
Compared with its mega-cap tech and semiconductor peers AAPL, AMZN, MSFT and NVDA, SMH sits below the peer median put assignment rate of 31.6%. 2 of those 4 peers had simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold, as did SMH.
The separate 21-Day Rule study for SMH uses a longer 35 DTE recipe, so it is not additive to this snapshot. On that study the managed arm finished +29.5 pp ahead of holding to expiry, against a median of +2.0 pp across tickers.
| Metric | SMH | Family median | Rank (highest first unless noted) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put assignment rate | 25.7% | 31.0% | 30th of 45 |
| Simulated premium | $38,510 | $10,128 | 6th of 45 |
| Wheel P&L | $28,010 | $2,828 | 1st of 45 |
| Buy-and-hold P&L | $20,462 | $3,901 | 3rd of 45 |
| Wheel minus buy-and-hold | $7,548 | −$495 | 3rd of 45 |
| Ticker | Put assignment | Premium | Wheel P&L | Buy-and-hold P&L | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SMH | 25.7% | $38,510 | $28,010 | $20,462 | Wheel ahead |
| AAPL | 30.0% | $13,623 | $2,123 | $11,541 | Wheel behind |
| AMZN | 44.0% | $17,497 | $6,497 | $5,112 | Wheel ahead |
| MSFT | 20.0% | $27,041 | $5,541 | $10,807 | Wheel behind |
| NVDA | 33.3% | $18,215 | $9,215 | $3,901 | Wheel ahead |
SMH 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: 9 IV / 27 bar / 15 HV
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