A cash-secured put on STRC, one of Strategy's preferred securities designed to trade around its $100 par. Sold the $80 put for 4.95 on a 4% notional, expiry 17 July. The trade is premium-first: keep the credit if STRC holds above 80, or get assigned a deeply discounted, income-paying preferred near a 75 effective basis and run it as a wheel.
STRC is one of Strategy's preferred securities. Like most preferreds of its type, it is engineered to trade around a $100 par value, with the issuer using the dividend as the lever: when the price drifts below par, the bi-weekly dividend can be raised to pull demand back and push the price up toward 100. That gives the security a soft gravity toward par that an ordinary equity does not have.
That par-anchoring is the whole reason this works as an options-income trade rather than a directional bet. I am not trying to call the next move in a volatile stock; I am selling insurance on an instrument that has a structural reason to hold its level.
I sold the $80 put for a 4.95 premium on a 4% notional, expiring 17 July. No shares bought. The first outcome, and the one I am mainly playing for, is simple: if STRC is above 80 at expiry the put expires worthless and I keep the 4.95 as free premium. That is the base case.
The second outcome is the cushioned back-up. If STRC falls below 80 and I am assigned, I buy the preferred at 80, but the 4.95 premium drops my effective basis to about 75.05, roughly 20%-plus below the $100 par. I would be long a discounted, income-paying preferred, which is not a bad place to be put.
Assignment is not the end of the trade, it is the start of the next leg. Filled near 75 on a security whose issuer wants it back at 100, I collect the dividend while I wait and sell covered calls against the position, taking in more premium and setting a sale level back toward par.
That full cycle, sell puts to get in cheap, then sell calls to get out higher while banking dividends and premium along the way, is the wheel. STRC suits it because the par-anchoring gives both ends of the wheel a natural reference level.
The notional is 4% of the book, cash-secured, so the downside is defined and funded: the worst case is being assigned the preferred at a known, discounted basis. The real risk is a genuine impairment of the issuer that breaks the par-anchoring and the dividend, in which case the preferred could trade well below 80 and stay there. That is the scenario the premium is being paid for.
Against that, the position is small, the entry basis is well below par, and the security is income-producing. It is a measured, premium-first trade with a defined and cushioned downside, not a leveraged bet.
The live position. This idea is tracked with real entries, exits and option legs on the Trade Log (STRC). Educational only — not financial advice or a recommendation.