I have been trading options, sell covered calls the last year or so. Lately I have been getting in and out of the sell covered calls and barely waiting for them to expire, some etfs I trade are volatile and can move the option a few dollars a day, even ones expiring in 3 to 6 months. Is it better to trade a sell covered call months out or stick with closer options expiring a week or month out? What is the recommended trade technique with these type of option trades?
if you want to keep the underlying as long term position, sell weekly or bi-weeekly just 2-3 ticks above the largest strike volume. you can always roll up or down.
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The shorter you come in time the more gamma risk you expose yourself too. Sell quarterlies if you want to short vol. Lazy way add the ATM combo and go one further strike out. Want to juice up your returns create syn straddles ( sell options in a 2:1 ratio. 100 shares sell 2 options at the 20 delta mark) At a strike touch you will be up, you can roll to the next quarterly or close the whole position.
I personally like to sell 45 days or less I try to sell covered vertical calls or vertical put spreads - again my personal preference after 25 years as a broker/ futures trader. https://www.cannontrading.com/tools/education-futures-options-trading-101
You can backtest that. We have recently updated our pre-run tests and are up to 180 million. covered calls are in there.
Would you ever sell a covered call that's below your cost average price but the credit covers enough where if the stock is assigned away you still walk away with a profit?