Here's the analysis of NYT put options with decent volume, filtering out zero-bid strikes.

NYT Put Selling Opportunities — Filtered for Non-Zero Bids & Decent Volume

Looking at the chain, NYT stock appears to be trading around the mid-70s. Here are the puts worth considering:

Near-Term (Aug 21, 2026)

October (Oct 16, 2026)

January 2027 (Jan 15, 2027)

Key Takeaways

• Highest open interest: The Aug 77.50 put (4,568 OI) and Aug 82.50 put (4,552 OI) dominate, suggesting these are the most liquid strikes. The 77.50 put has a $4.90 mid, yielding ~6.3% on notional in under a month.

• Best volume/liquidity balance: The Aug 72.50 put (179 bid size) and Aug 75 put (140 bid size, 149 OI) offer solid fills with less extreme positioning.

• For longer-dated premium: The Jan 80 put (55 bid size, 56 OI, $9.90 bid) and Jan 82.50 put (61 bid size, $11.60 bid) provide attractive absolute premium with reasonable spreads.

• Watch the spreads: Many puts have wide bid-ask spreads (e.g., Aug 70: 1.50–3.90). Use limit orders near mid. The Aug 75 and 77.50 strikes have the tightest effective spreads relative to premium.

• OTM cushion: Selling the 70 strike or below across any expiry gives roughly 7–10% downside buffer from current levels (~$73–74 range based on the chain profile).

Here's the put bid and bid size for NYT strikes 50, 55, 60, 65 across all available expiries through June 2027:

Summary: The 60 and 65 strikes are where meaningful bids appear across the later expiries. The Dec 18 65 put shows the strongest combination with a $2.45 bid and 126 bid size. For strikes 50 and 55, there's essentially no viable market — Aug and Sep show zero bids at 50/55, and only Oct onward shows tiny bids at 55.

The table above already shows bid prices and bid sizes only — not mids or last prices. Each cell is formatted as Bid $ / Bid Size.

To be crystal clear:

These are the pure bid (highest willing buyer) and bid size (contracts bid at that price) from the chain. The 60 and 65 strikes remain the only ones with real two-sided markets across the curve.

You're right — the Schwab live data tells a much more sober story. The Dec 18 60 put bid is $0.25 (vs the stale $0.60 I showed) and the spread is brutal: $0.25 bid / $4.20 ask — that's a 16x spread.

This is the reality with NYT options. The chain data I pulled was from July 26 close and options on a mid-cap name like NYT decay fast when there's no flow. Here's what matters:

The real problem is liquidity, not price. Even the strikes that showed decent open interest (Aug 77.50 with 4,568 OI) may just be parked positions — not active two-way markets. Your Schwab screen showing a 28 bid size vs 42 ask size on the Dec 60 put confirms the market is thin.

Practical take: If you want to sell puts on NYT, you're going to have to work limit orders near the bid and be patient. The wide spreads mean you can potentially get filled at favorable prices if a buyer needs to cross the spread, but you're competing with market makers who know this name is illiquid. Strikes 60–65 across Oct–Jan are the only ones with any real bid interest. Don't expect fills at mid — price at the bid or slightly above and wait.

I need to gather the data to calculate Realized Volatility for NYT and then price the Aug 21 67.50 put. Let me pull the price history and option chain details.Now let me calculate the realized volatility and price the put.Good, now I can run the Black-Scholes:Here's the full picture:

NYT Aug 21 $67.50 Put — RV-Based Pricing

What This Means

The market is pricing this put at a massive premium to realized vol. The mid ($1.73) is roughly 3x the RV-implied value (~$0.50–$0.59). Even at the bid of $1.05, you're selling at nearly double what historical volatility says the put is worth.

This is classic for illiquid single-stock options — market makers widen spreads to protect themselves, and the embedded implied vol runs much hotter than RV. With NYT recently dropping from ~$75 to ~$72, there may also be elevated near-term fear priced in.

Bottom line: If you can get filled at $1.05 (the bid), you're still selling rich vs RV. That said, with a 24-day window and a 67.50 strike (~7% OTM from here), the absolute risk is contained. Just know the theoretical "fair value" based on how NYT actually moves is closer to $0.50.

NYT Aug 21 Puts — RV-Based vs Market

Key observations:

• $72.50 is the interesting one — the market bid ($1.95) is actually below RV-implied value ($2.15–$2.33). This is the only strike where the bid doesn't give you a premium over RV. It's essentially at fair value or slightly cheap.

• $70.00 — bid of $1.50 sits modestly above the RV range ($1.11–$1.26). You're getting a small edge, about $0.25–$0.40 of premium over theoretical.

• $67.50 — as before, the bid ($1.05) is roughly 2x RV. Best premium capture but furthest OTM.

Practical take: The $72.50 is nearly ATM and priced efficiently — no free lunch. The $70 strike offers a decent balance of premium over RV and some downside cushion (~3.3% OTM). The $67.50 gives you the widest margin of safety but you're fighting the widest relative spread.

I used three lookback windows:

• 3-Month RV: 32.0%
• 6-Month RV: 30.5%
  
• 12-Month RV: 29.6%

All three are shown in the table. The 3-month window captures the recent volatility spike (NYT dropped from ~$75 to ~$70 in recent days), which is why it reads higher. The 12-month is the calmest at 29.6%.

Which one is "right" depends on your view. If you think the recent turbulence is temporary, the 12-month RV is the better gauge and the puts look even richer vs that. If you think the higher recent vol persists, the 3-month number is more relevant — and at the $72.50 strike, the market bid actually looks slightly cheap against it.

NYT Aug 21 Puts — RV-Based Pricing (ATM = $74.50)

The $75 put

The $75 strike is now slightly ITM with spot at $74.50. RV says it should be worth about $2.41–$2.59. The market bid is $3.20, so even here you're getting roughly $0.60–$0.80 of premium over RV — about a 25–30% edge.

The pattern across the chain is consistent: market makers are pricing in vol well above what NYT has actually realized over any recent lookback. Even the near-ATM strikes carry a meaningful volatility risk premium. The $72.50 remains the most efficiently priced of the bunch.

NYT Aug 21 Puts — RV-Based (Spot = $74.75)

No change in the story. The $75 put is barely ITM and RV says fair value is $2.28–$2.46. The bid of $3.20 is still a solid ~30% premium over RV. Every strike across the board trades rich to realized — market makers are keeping vol pumped on this name.

No, 5% of strike for a 1-month put with sub-50% RV is not expected — that's extremely rich. Let me quantify it:

For a 1-month ATM put with 30% RV (roughly NYT's level), Black-Scholes gives you roughly:

$$\text{ATM Put} \approx 0.4 \times S \times \sigma \times \sqrt{T}$$

$$= 0.4 \times 75 \times 0.30 \times \sqrt{1/12} \approx \$2.60$$

That's about 3.5% of strike. And that's for ATM. For OTM, it drops fast.

At 50% RV, same ATM: ~$4.30 or ~5.7% of strike. So 5% is plausible only if you're near ATM with vol at the high end (~50%).

Now look at what you're actually seeing on NYT:

The 5% threshold for a 1-month expiry with sub-50% RV would normally require being deep ITM or getting a huge vol risk premium. On NYT, even the $75 ITM put only gets you to ~4.3% at bid. To get 5% you'd need to go deeper ITM (like 77.50 or 80), where you're mostly paying for intrinsic value, not selling vol.

So if someone's offering you 5% of strike for a 1-month OTM put on a 30% RV name — that's a gift. It's not the norm and almost certainly comes with a catch (wide spreads, no fill, or a name under severe stress).

Not quite — 4.3% here is for the $75 strike which is already ITM. That's mostly intrinsic value ($0.25) plus the vol premium. The vol-derived portion is only about $2.35–$2.46, or ~3.1–3.3% of strike.

For a truly ATM 1-month put at 30% RV, the fair value is roughly 3.2–3.5% of strike. That's the baseline. It doesn't matter if it's NYT, AAPL, or anything else — Black-Scholes doesn't care about the ticker, just the math.

Quick reference for a 1-month ATM put:

So 4.3% on NYT at the $75 bid looks "normal" only because the strike is slightly ITM and you're capturing a vol premium above RV. For a true OTM put on a 30% RV name, you'd expect more like 2–3%, and that drops quickly as you go further OTM. The $70 put at 2.1% of strike is closer to what "normal" looks like for a ~$5 OTM put at these vol levels.