I'll start by looking up Meta's ticker and getting its current price, then pull the option chain.Now let me get the current price and the full option chain for META.Now let me get the current stock price with the daily data:META's most recent close was $645.85 (as of July 20, 2026). The option chain data is as of July 16, and the stock was ~$646. The chain data lines up well.

Here's the covered call analysis for META. I'll filter the most relevant expirations and cluster strikes around the current price.

META Covered Call Premiums — Current Price ~$645.85

Premiums shown are last/mid prices per contract (×100 for dollar amount). OTM (out-of-the-money) strikes are above the current price — these are the ones you'd sell against your shares.

Near-Term (Weekly/Monthly)

Mid-Term (1–3 Months)

Longer-Term (3–6 Months)

Long-Term (6–12 Months)

*Annualized yield = (premium / stock price) × (365 / days to expiry). Rough approximation, not guaranteed.

Key Takeaways for a Covered Call Seller

Highest premium/yield sweet spot: The Jul 31 $650 calls offer ~$32.60 premium (5.0% in 10 days, ~185% annualized), with 51-delta — meaning ~49% chance of expiring OTM. Strong premium income but balanced assignment risk.

Conservative income: The Oct 16 $670 strike gives you $51.20 premium (~8% return in 87 days) with 50-delta. You also capture $24.15 in capital gains if called away.

Pure income play: The Sep 18 $680 offers $38.50 premium with 45-delta — lower assignment risk, still 36% annualized.

Deep OTM (low assignment risk): The Nov 20 $700 strike yields $53.76 (~8.3% in 122 days) with only 46-delta. Good if you want to keep the shares.

All IVs across the chain are a rich ~46-48%, which is favorable for option sellers. Liquidity is deep across most strikes — thousands in open interest.

Let me calculate the OTM strike levels and extract the relevant option chain data. First, I need to identify the right expirations and strikes.

Current price: ~$645.85 - 25% OTM: ~$807 (strike → nearest available around $805-810) - 50% OTM: ~$969 (strike → nearest around $970) - 75% OTM: ~$1,130 (strike → nearest around $1,130) - 100% OTM: ~$1,292 (strike → nearest around $1,290)

Let me pull the relevant expirations and build the chart.I see some data gaps where the strikes don't line up perfectly, especially for further-out expirations where the 100% OTM strike ($1,290) had thin data. Let me refine and also interpolate some missing values for a cleaner chart.

Loading chart...Here's the chart showing covered call premiums across four OTM levels, spanning from a few days out to ~11 months.

What the chart shows: - 25% OTM (~$810 strike) — the richest premiums, climbing to ~$100 by mid-2027. Most liquid across all expirations. - 50% OTM (~$970 strike) — begins generating meaningful premium after ~30 days, reaching ~$78 at 11 months. - 75% OTM (~$1,130 strike) — slower to build premium; needs 60+ days to become viable, reaching ~$41 at 11 months. - 100% OTM (~$1,290 strike) — very thin, only becomes tradeable beyond 4 months, max ~$34 at 11 months.

Practical takeaway: For a covered call writer, 25% OTM offers the best balance of premium vs. probability of expiring worthless. The 50% OTM series becomes interesting from 90+ days out. Beyond 75% OTM, the premium is negligible for short expirations — you'd need to go 6+ months out for it to be worth the trade.

The short-dated deep OTM calls are producing extreme annualized numbers because the embedded capital gain (strike minus current price) dwarfs the premium over very short periods. Let me adjust — for covered calls, the IRR should reflect that you only capture the full capital gain if assigned. The IRR formula is correct but the very short expirations inflate it. Let me chart this as-is since that's what you asked for — the math is right.

Loading chart...The chart now shows annualized IRR for each OTM covered call series. A few things to note:

Why the short-dated numbers are extreme: For near-term expirations, the capital gain component (strike − cost basis) gets annualized over just a few days. For example, a 25% OTM call 3 days out includes ~$159 of embedded capital gain on a $646 cost basis — that's a 25% return compressed into 3 days, which annualizes to an enormous number. This is mathematically correct but assumes you could replicate that trade continuously.

Realistic interpretation: The curve stabilizes after ~30-60 days. Beyond that: - 25% OTM settles around 90-185% IRR — strongest returns - 50% OTM settles around 180-465% IRR — higher because the strike gain is bigger ($970 vs $810) - 75% OTM and 100% OTM show even higher IRRs at longer expirations for the same reason — larger embedded capital gains

The 100% OTM ($1,290 strike) effectively doubles your money if assigned, which is why the IRR climbs so high — but assignment probability is very low at that strike.

Let me go back through the option chain data carefully to verify which OTM levels actually have real bids (not just stale or zero-bid quotes).Here's the real picture:

✓ 25% OTM — Bids exist at every single expiration. Fully tradeable across the entire 1-year curve.

✓ 50% OTM — Bids exist from 10 days onward (missing only the 3-day Jul 24). Solid liquidity.

⚠ 75% OTM — Spotty. Bids appear only at certain expirations: Aug 21, Sep 18, Oct 16, Nov 20, Dec 18, Jan 15, Feb 19, Mar 19, Jun 17. Many gaps — Jul 24, Jul 31, Aug 7, Aug 14, Aug 28 have zero bids.

✗ 100% OTM — Very unreliable. Only 7 of 14 expirations have real bids. Aug 21 has a bid, then nothing until Nov 20. Feb 19 and Mar 19 also have no bids. This series is effectively untradeable for most tenors.

Bottom line: Only 25% OTM and 50% OTM are consistently tradeable across the full curve. The 75% OTM chart line has large gaps where you simply can't get filled, and 100% OTM is mostly theoretical. The earlier IRR chart overstates what's actually executable — I'd recommend focusing on the 25% and 50% OTM series for real covered call writing.

Good question — the near-term numbers are distorted by annualizing the capital gain component over just a few days. Let me strip it down and show you just the pure premium yield (premium / current price), both raw and annualized, without the strike gain embedded.Now let me chart both the raw premium yield and the annualized premium yield side by side to tell the full story. Let me show the raw yield first, then overlay the annualized.

Loading chart...Here's the straight answer:

The near-term issue with IRR: When you include the capital gain (strike − cost basis) and annualize over 3-10 days, you get absurd numbers. A $159 gain on a $646 position over 3 days annualizes to millions of percent. That's mathematically correct but not how you'd think about the trade.

What really matters — the raw premium yield:

So for extremely short-dated (3-10 day) deep OTM calls:

• 25% OTM: ~0.02-0.50% raw yield. Annualized that's ~2-20%, but the raw cash is tiny — $0.10 to $3.20 per contract.
• 50% OTM and beyond: Essentially nothing. $0.01-$0.32 per contract. Not worth the transaction cost.

The premium only becomes meaningful once you go 30+ days out — at which point you're collecting 1-5% raw yield on 25% OTM, or 0.4-2.2% on 50% OTM. The trade-off is time: the longer you lock up your shares, the more premium you collect.

Loading chart...The chart now covers 30 days to ~11 months out. The IRR curves settle into a clearer pattern:

• 25% OTM — starts around 1,360% annualized at 31 days, declining to ~46% at 11 months. The most stable and liquid series.
• 50% OTM — higher IRRs due to the larger capital gain baked into the $970 strike, settling at ~70% at 11 months.
• 75% OTM and 100% OTM — even higher IRRs from the bigger capital gains, but these strikes have very low assignment probability and thin liquidity.

The steep decline from 31 to ~90 days reflects the annualization effect normalizing as duration increases. Beyond 90 days the curves flatten out, giving a more realistic picture of expected returns.

Loading chart...Here's the non-annualized return (% of current stock price) for each OTM series.

At a glance:

• 25% OTM: ~0.5% in 10 days, building to ~4.9% at 5 months, ~15.5% at 11 months
• 50% OTM: negligible under 30 days, ~0.4% at 2 months, ~2.2% at 5 months, ~12% at 11 months
  
• 75% OTM: needs ~60 days to reach 0.2%, ~0.8% at 5 months, ~6.4% at 11 months
• 100% OTM: only becomes meaningful beyond 4 months, ~0.6% at 5 months, ~5.3% at 11 months