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Category 7

Options-based income

You sell someone the right to buy or sell at a set price, and keep the premium.

Mechanism: Option premiums You sell someone a right and keep the payment for it.

Read this first
Premium is not interest. Losses can far exceed the income received, and upside is capped.

Everything in this category is paid the same way, so what separates one page from the next is the wrapper rather than where the money comes from: how much it takes to start, how quickly you could turn it back into cash, who does the work, how it is taxed, and how it fails. The line on each card says whether the income keeps arriving once it is set up or whether somebody has to keep working for it. If the mechanism itself is new to you, the course spends a whole lesson on it and is a shorter way in than any single page here.

Covered Calls

You own at least 100 shares of a stock and sell someone the right to buy them from you at a fixed strike price; the buyer's premium is credited to your account immediately.

Semi-passive · Shares are tied up until the option is closed or expires, though the option itself can usually be bought back the same day in a liquid name Read →

Cash-Secured Puts

You set aside cash to buy 100 shares at a chosen price and sell someone the right to make you buy them there, keeping the premium whether or not that happens.

Semi-passive · The reserved cash is locked until the put is closed or expires; the option can usually be bought back same-day in a liquid name Read →

Put-Write Strategies

A rules-based programme of repeatedly selling index puts against a Treasury-bill collateral pool, so the income is a volatility risk premium stacked on top of a cash yield.

Semi-passive · Index option markets are deep and the collateral is in bills or a money fund, so the strategy can generally be unwound within a day; fund versions trade like any listed fund Read →

Covered-Call Funds

A fund holds a stock portfolio and systematically sells call options against it, then passes the premium through as a monthly or weekly distribution.

Truly passive · Daily. ETFs trade throughout the session, mutual funds price once daily at the close Read →

Option-Income Closed-End Funds

A closed-end fund with a fixed share count runs an option-writing programme and pays a managed monthly distribution, while its shares trade at a discount or premium to the assets behind them.

Truly passive · Exchange-traded during market hours, but there is no redemption right — you exit by selling at the market price, discount and all. Volume in smaller funds can be thin. Read →

Credit Spreads

You sell one option and buy a cheaper, further-out-of-the-money option in the same expiration, keeping the net credit and capping the worst case at the distance between the strikes.

Semi-passive · Both legs can be closed together during market hours in a liquid underlying; the capital is committed as buying power until then Read →

Iron Condors

Two credit spreads at once — one above the market, one below — so you collect premium from both sides and profit if the underlying goes nowhere.

Semi-passive · All four legs can be closed together during market hours in a liquid underlying; buying power is committed until then Read →

Collar Strategies

You own the stock, sell a call above the market and use the premium to buy a protective put below it, fencing the position between a floor and a ceiling.

Semi-passive · Both option legs can be closed during market hours; the shares stay in place, and unwinding the structure is required before selling them Read →

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