📩 The Option Premium Weekly Issue - November 30, 2025

Premium sellers aren’t paid for bold calls; they’re paid for showing up with a plan, over and over again.

I’m steadily turning The Option Premium from “just a newsletter” into a full personal options education platform, and 2026 is when you’ll see that really take shape. The free weekly issue will stay home base, but around it I’m building a deeper ecosystem: a YouTube channel with an editing setup I finally trust, step-by-step courses, live webinars, and shorter, focused teaching videos you can revisit any time you need a refresher. I’m moving deliberately on purpose, I'd rather build tools that are clear, repeatable, and useful for years than rush out content that doesn’t meet the standard you expect.

The Income Foundation will continue to deepen its Wheel and cash-secured put coverage with clearer trade breakdowns, portfolio context, and ongoing updates. Wealth Without Shares will keep expanding its Poor Man’s Covered Call portfolios and LEAPS watchlists, with more “why this trade, why now” commentary. The Implied Perspective will lean even further into its strengths, using IV, IV Rank, RSI, and other indicators to frame a structured weekly playbook of condors and spreads.

I also know many of you like to step out on your own from time to time but don’t always have hours to research new trades. So in 2026 I’ll be adding more ready-to-use weekly idea lists across the services, thoughtful, pre-screened candidates for when you want an extra position or two without building a watchlist from scratch.

What keeps me pushing in this direction is the feedback you’ve shared. One loyal, long-time reader told me that when he knew nothing about options, my early YouTube videos from over a decade ago were the best thing that ever happened to him as a trader, and that he’d be forever grateful. Comments like that are exactly why I’m taking the time to get this next chapter right, and why everything rolling out in 2026 is being built to genuinely earn your trust and stay useful for years.

As I stated last week, I rely on you to help The Option Premium grow. If the work has helped you, I have a simple, honest ask: pick an article that you’ve found valuable and share it, on Reddit, X, Facebook, in a trading/investment group or community you’re part of, wherever it makes sense. A quick share with a short note about why it helped you does more for this project than any ad campaign ever could. If you’re willing to do that, it would mean a great deal. I’d love to see where this community can go, one reader and one recommendation at a time. Thank you!

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Thanks again for being part of this. What we’re building now is the base layer for everything that comes next, and I’m genuinely grateful you’re here for it.

📰 Market Commentary & Snapshot

Why 2025 Was Better Than It Felt

If you judged 2025 by the headlines, you'd think the market spent twelve months teetering on the edge. Tariff threats, government dysfunction, persistent inflation anxiety, the usual chorus of recession prophets, plenty of noise to make anyone nervous.

Here's what actually happened:

The S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq all delivered strong double-digit returns. International equities did even better. Investors who stayed the course, or who built income through LEAPS, PMCCs, and covered calls instead of trying to time every twist, got paid for their discipline.

The long-anticipated recession never showed up. Economic growth decelerated, then found its footing. Consumer sentiment surveys remained gloomy while actual spending held firm. That's not irrational exuberance, but it's nowhere near catastrophe.

Corporate earnings carried the load. Profits expanded at a solid pace, margins stayed healthy, and stock prices rose on fundamentals rather than just valuation expansion, precisely the environment where systematic options income strategies thrive.

AI and technology remained dominant forces, but market leadership quietly diversified. That matters if you're building balanced options portfolios rather than concentrating everything on a single theme.

The Federal Reserve backed away from maximum restrictiveness. Interest rates drifted lower, inflation pressures moderated, and the debate shifted from "how much additional tightening?" to "how gradually should they ease?"

Perhaps the most significant structural shift: fixed income began offering genuine yield again. A 10-year Treasury around 4% means you can finally combine options premium with bond income instead of leaving cash earning nothing.

Was 2025 comfortable? Hardly. Was it profitable for disciplined, probability-focused traders? Without question.

The tenets I'm carrying into 2026 remains the same: Your edge doesn't come from forecasting the next macro surprise. It comes from constructing a durable, capital-efficient framework, with proper position sizing, thoughtful strategy selection, defined risk parameters, and trusting it to perform through years like 2025, where the actual results quietly exceeded the prevailing narrative.

That's what I'm working on here at The Option Premium every week: cutting through the market chaos and showing you how to use PMCCs, Wheel trades, iron condors, and credit spreads in a systematic, repeatable way.

📊 Weekly Market Stats

📰 Weekly In-Depth Articles 

🗓️ Tuesday, November 25th - When to Roll the LEAPS Itself

🗓️ Friday, November 28th - Bear Call Spread vs. Bull Call Spread: The Complete Guide to Understanding "Call" Spreads

🎓 Options 101: The First Steps to Trading

Cash-Secured Puts as a Stock Entry Plan - “Getting Paid to Wait”

This week’s Options 101 article breaks down one of the simplest and most misunderstood edges in options trading: using cash-secured puts as a disciplined stock-entry system rather than chasing tickers at whatever price the market demands. The article explains how CSPs force clarity, you pre-commit to a price you actually want to own a stock, get paid upfront for that commitment, and either (1) collect income when the stock stays above your strike or (2) acquire shares at a discount when the market offers them. You’ll learn realistic break-even math, the three assignment scenarios that matter, when not to sell puts (binary events, liquidity issues, no conviction), and how to build a systematic entry plan around target valuation instead of emotion or FOMO.

For traders running The Wheel, building long-term equity positions, or wanting to earn income on idle cash, this week’s guide shows why CSPs are less about speculation and more about thoughtful accumulation, turning patience into a cash-flow engine.

👉 For the full framework, strike-selection models, watchlist guidance, and real examples, read the complete article inside The Option Premium. 

🧠 Mental Capital

Train not just your trading system, but your trading self.

The Social Media Trap: Comparing Your P&L to Strangers

This week’s Mental Capital tackles one of the most corrosive forces in modern trading: social media comparison. You scroll past a screenshot of someone “printing” $47,000 in a day on 0DTE trades and, without even realizing it, your steady, rules-based $340 covered-call win suddenly feels like failure. The article pulls that apart: how highlight reels warp your expectations, push you into oversized positions, shorten your time horizon, and quietly sabotage otherwise solid Wheel, PMCC, and income strategies. Instead of trying to “keep up” with anonymous accounts running hidden leverage and undisclosed drawdowns, you learn how to anchor to your edge: consistent position sizing, realistic monthly return targets, and a process you can repeat for years, not days.

👉 If this hits close to home and you’re ready to trade your own plan instead of someone else’s screenshot, read the full article in this week’s issue.

📊 The Implied Truth: Weekly Table Overview

Unlock the Full Picture - Upgrade to access the complete table, including all 100 equities (AAPL, META, AMZN, NVDA and more)

Every number tells a story. Each week, we decode the landscape across the most liquid ETFs, because this is where retail traders get the cleanest signals and the least slippage. But the power isn’t in the data, it’s in how you interpret it.

Below is your edge: a strategic overview that reveals where the premium is overpriced, where price action is exhausted, and where the highest-probability setups exist for the coming week.

This section is here to help you choose what works for your strategy. The numbers are facts, not opinions. Whether you sell premium, buy directional spreads, or trade reversals, the edge begins with understanding volatility and momentum. Let’s dig in.

What This Table Tells Us

• Use this weekly to guide your trade ideas, not predict outcomes.

• The data is factual. There’s no opinion in this grid, only opportunity.

• Choose what aligns with your timeframe, risk appetite, and edge.

Current Snapshot for Premium Sellers

On the surface, it’s a classic “everything looks fine” tape. The big index ETFs (SPY, QQQ, DIA, VTI, RSP) are near highs with implied volatility in the low- to mid-teens and IV Rank mostly in the teens. That’s not panic pricing; it’s “normal” volatility and only modest edge for short premium in the broad indexes. The VIX itself sits around 17 with very low IV Rank and an RSI(2) near 7, a sign that volatility has been sold hard and is now short-term oversold. Breadth has improved: just over 50% of S&P 500 names are above their 50-day moving average and about 57% are above the 200-day, a healthier backdrop than when only a third of stocks were participating.

Under the surface, the short-term momentum picture is stretched. RSI(2) is in the 90s for most of the sector ETFs on the list (SPY, QQQ, DIA, RSP, VTI, GDX, GLD, XBI, XHB, XLB, XLF, XLI, XRT, etc.), while 14-day RSI sits in the mid-50s to low-60s for the indexes. That’s the profile of a market that has sprinted higher over a few sessions inside an ongoing uptrend, more “hot and extended” than “just getting started.” In contrast, EEM, FXI, IBIT, URA, USO, XLK and the VIX still sit with RSI(14) below 50, showing pockets where trends are softer or still repairing.

The real edge for premium sellers remains in the high-volatility clusters. Metals and uranium (GDX, GLD, SLV, URA) plus select cyclicals and risk pockets (IBIT, XLB, XLE, XRT, XBI) all carry elevated implied volatility with IV Rank in the 30s to 60s and firm IV Percentiles. Some of those, especially XBI and XLV, also show very strong trend readings on ADX, more “breakout tape” than choppy mean-reversion. At the other extreme, KRE, TLT, XLF, DIA, HYG and the VIX sit with very low IV Rank, offering less compensation for new short-vol trades. The simple takeaway: we’re in a strong, short-term overbought market with a crushed VIX and only average index premium. That favors smaller size and defined-risk structures in the broad indexes, while concentrating most of your short-premium ideas in the specific high-IV pockets, metals, uranium, crypto, biotech, and select cyclicals, where the options market is still paying you to take risk.

👉 For a deeper dive each week, including a full breakdown of the most liquid optionable ETFs and an in-depth analysis of 100+ highly liquid equities, check out The Implied Perspective, our paid service that turns this data into structured, high-probability premium ideas.

As always, this section is meant to be an educational lens on the current landscape, not personal advice. The edge comes from matching the strategy to the regime, keeping position sizes small, and letting a large sample of disciplined trades do the heavy lifting over time.

Quick Reference

📚 Educational Corner: Options Deep Dive

The PMCC Collar Framework: Building Income with a Floor

This week’s Educational Corner dives into one of the most overlooked edges in PMCC trading: adding a protective floor without destroying the income engine that makes the strategy worth running. The article breaks down why PMCCs fail during 25 to 40% drawdowns, what you’re actually trying to protect (hint: not 5 to 10% pullbacks), and how to use structured collars, OTM puts, put spreads, or event-driven hedges, to convert unlimited downside into a defined, survivable worst case.

You’ll learn when collars make sense (RSI > 65, IVR low), how to cap hedge costs to 25 to 35% of your expected income, and how to finance protection without turning your PMCC into a directional gamble. It’s a full, practical framework for traders who want durable income, not just income when markets behave.

👉 If you want the complete framework, trade examples, and portfolio-level application, read the full article now.

⁉️ Did You Know?

IV Rank Tells You Which Strategy to Use, Not Just If You Should Trade

IV Rank and IV Percentile aren’t just trivia numbers, they quietly tell you which options strategy is likely to make the most sense right now. When IV Rank is elevated, you’re usually better off selling premium with credit spreads, condors, or cash-secured puts, because the options market is already paying you for uncertainty. When IV Rank is low, trying to squeeze credit out of short premium becomes a grind, and that’s where structures like PMCCs or long diagonals can step in as more efficient choices.

Instead of asking, “Is this stock good for options?” a better question is, “Given this IV Rank and Percentile, is this a premium-selling environment or a long-vol/LEAPS environment?” That simple shift can keep you from forcing the wrong playbook on the wrong volatility regime.

👉 Deeper dive: “How to Read (and Use) IV Rank and IV Percentile Without Getting Confused”

 🧭 The Earnings Playbook

(Educational and idea-generating for all readers)

No key earnings releases this week among names with highly liquid options.

🧭 Earnings Season Options Trade: A Step-by-Step Guide: Explore the in-depth, quantitative approach to the best strikes, probabilities, and setups for earnings trades: learn the mechanics of the high-probability approach.

👉 For detailed frameworks, including delta targets, exit triggers, and trade structuring ideas, join the paid edition: The Implied Perspective.

🔗 Let’s Stay Connected

Have questions, feedback, or just want to say hello? I’d love to hear from you.
📩 Email me anytime at [email protected]

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Thanks again for reading. I hope you found today’s insights valuable and worth your time.

Trade Smart. Trade Thoughtfully.
Andy Crowder
Founder | Editor-in-Chief | Chief Options Strategist
The Option Premium

Educational use only. The Option Premium is a publication for educational purposes and does not provide personalized investment advice. Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Always confirm details and manage risk prudently.