Nov 8, 2024 – Nov 6, 2026
Buy & hold finished $741.27 ahead of the wheel (earned more: $4069.00 vs $3327.73).
Buy & hold Buy 100 shares and hold | Wheel strategy Puts → calls · keep premiums as cash | |
|---|---|---|
| Profit or loss | $4069.00 | $3327.73 |
| Largest drop | $3157.00 | $2172.64 |
This simulation ran 2024-11-08 to 2026-11-06 (51 trades, 9 cycles).
Simulated premium was $5,828. Simulated stock / assignment P&L was −$2,500. Combined realized P&L was $3,328.
Puts were assigned on 34.6% of put trades (9 of 26). Calls were assigned away on 36.0% of call trades (9 of 25).
This simulation’s wheel P&L ($3,328) trailed buy-and-hold P&L ($4,069) on the stored window.
Wheel drawdown was $2,173 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $2,173, from the 2025-01-30 peak to the 2025-04-08 trough, and got back to that peak on 2025-09-04. Buy-and-hold drawdown was $3,157 on the engine's stored basis; measured as the deepest fall from a P&L peak on the daily P&L series it was $3,157, from the 2026-05-19 peak to the 2026-08-27 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 86 of 500 days (17.2%). Its widest lead was $590 on 2026-05-21; its widest deficit was −$1,997 on 2025-05-05.
Wheel P&L peaked at $4,241 on 2026-05-08 and bottomed at −$1,510 on 2025-04-08. Buy-and-hold peaked at $4,937 on 2026-05-19 and bottomed at −$304 on 2025-04-08.
Of 51 priced entries, 6 used Black-Scholes fills from implied volatility, 27 used historical option bars, and 18 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 | $60 | — | $767 | −$707 | $0 | $0 |
| 2024-12 | −$281 | −$340 | $552 | −$833 | $428 | $535 |
| 2025-01 | $297 | $578 | $1,333 | −$1,036 | $365 | $49 |
| 2025-02 | $24 | −$273 | $1,378 | −$1,354 | $638 | $644 |
| 2025-03 | −$910 | −$934 | $296 | −$1,206 | $1,573 | $1,726 |
| 2025-04 | −$547 | $363 | $1,242 | −$1,789 | $1,210 | $780 |
| 2025-05 | −$329 | $218 | $1,389 | −$1,718 | $992 | $633 |
| 2025-06 | −$131 | $199 | $1,295 | −$1,426 | $793 | $727 |
| 2025-07 | $134 | $265 | $1,315 | −$1,181 | $528 | $707 |
| 2025-08 | $198 | $64 | $1,215 | −$1,017 | $464 | $807 |
| 2025-09 | $759 | $561 | $1,823 | −$1,064 | $82 | $199 |
| 2025-10 | $987 | $228 | $1,635 | −$648 | $0 | $785 |
| 2025-11 | $1,355 | $368 | $2,568 | −$1,213 | $27 | $0 |
| 2025-12 | $1,223 | −$132 | $2,658 | −$1,435 | $313 | $538 |
| 2026-01 | $1,869 | $646 | $3,431 | −$1,562 | $332 | $122 |
| 2026-02 | $3,264 | $1,395 | $4,312 | −$1,048 | $205 | $594 |
| 2026-03 | $3,302 | $38 | $3,945 | −$643 | $167 | $961 |
| 2026-04 | $3,882 | $580 | $4,710 | −$828 | $0 | $196 |
| 2026-05 | $2,962 | −$920 | $3,092 | −$130 | $1,279 | $1,845 |
| 2026-06 | $2,863 | −$99 | $2,843 | $20 | $1,378 | $2,094 |
| 2026-07 | $2,780 | −$83 | $2,637 | $143 | $1,461 | $2,300 |
| 2026-08 | $2,413 | −$367 | $2,004 | $409 | $1,828 | $2,933 |
| 2026-09 | $2,443 | $30 | $1,909 | $534 | $1,798 | $3,028 |
| 2026-10 | $3,328 | $885 | $3,868 | −$540 | $913 | $1,069 |
| 2026-11 | $3,328 | $0 | $4,069 | −$741 | $913 | $868 |
18 of 45 snapshots show simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold over their windows. WMT is not one of them.
Simulated premium equals 175.1% 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 COST, LLY, XLP and XLU, WMT sits above the peer median put assignment rate of 29.8%. 2 of those 4 peers had simulated wheel P&L above buy-and-hold, while WMT did not.
The separate 21-Day Rule study for WMT uses a longer 35 DTE recipe, so it is not additive to this snapshot. On that study the managed arm finished -24.8 pp behind holding to expiry, against a median of +2.0 pp across tickers.
| Metric | WMT | Family median | Rank (highest first unless noted) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put assignment rate | 34.6% | 31.0% | 14th of 45 |
| Simulated premium | $5,828 | $10,128 | 30th of 45 |
| Wheel P&L | $3,328 | $2,828 | 21st of 45 |
| Buy-and-hold P&L | $4,069 | $3,901 | 22nd of 45 |
| Wheel minus buy-and-hold | −$741 | −$495 | 25th of 45 |
| Ticker | Put assignment | Premium | Wheel P&L | Buy-and-hold P&L | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WMT | 34.6% | $5,828 | $3,328 | $4,069 | Wheel behind |
| COST | 36.8% | $38,434 | $17,934 | $10,976 | Wheel ahead |
| LLY | 31.0% | $79,237 | $19,237 | $52,246 | Wheel behind |
| XLP | 28.6% | $1,671 | $421 | $926 | Wheel behind |
| XLU | 20.0% | $1,583 | $683 | $354 | Wheel ahead |
WMT 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: 6 IV / 27 bar / 18 HV
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