Assigned: Selling Puts for Income

A cash-secured put is not free money. It's rent you collect for accepting someone else's downside.

Assigned and Called Away cover the two halves of the wheel: getting paid to buy stock you want, and getting paid to sell stock you hold.

Most options books fall into one of two traps: they sell you a fantasy of easy, endless income, or they bury a simple idea under a mountain of Greeks. Assigned does neither. It's a clear, jargon-light guide to the one options strategy a patient investor can actually run with real money — selling cash-secured puts — written by someone more interested in keeping you solvent than impressing you.

You'll start with what a put really is, and what "cash-secured" actually demands of your account. From there the book walks the whole strategy, one decision at a time:

• How to choose what to sell puts on — indexes, ETFs, and single stocks — and why settlement type changes everything
• Choosing strikes and expirations, and learning to read the premium for what it's really telling you
• A simple eight-point checklist to gate every trade before you place it
• Managing an open position, rolling, and what actually happens the day you're assigned
• The wheel: turning assignment into an ongoing income cycle
• The real downside — three dated trades built on real stock price histories (including the one that screened safest and still detonated), how to size positions so a bad month never becomes a disaster, and the truth about earnings and capped upside
• The psychology of selling puts, and how to assemble it all into a repeatable system you can run for years

Whether you're selling your first put or you've been collecting premium for years, Assigned gives you a disciplined, risk-first framework built on real price histories and real outcomes — not back-tested fantasies.

No guru promises. No guaranteed income. Just the mechanics, the math, and the discipline to sell puts with your eyes open.

Part of the Options Strategy Series, with Called Away and Hedged. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss; this book is educational and is not financial advice.

Look inside

A few pages from the paperback. Select a page to see it full size.

• The contents
• The opening of Chapter 1
• Figure 4.1: three approaches, three strikes
• Figure 13.2: the cushion that matters

Close

Previous pageNext page

Who it's for

Investors selling their first put, and experienced premium sellers who want a risk-first framework.

Try the free Cash-Secured Put Calculator.

Where to go next

• The Retirement Income Series Harvested: Covered Calls and Cash-Secured Puts for Retirement Income Dean Cross

  
  The Retirement Income SeriesHarvested: Covered Calls and Cash-Secured Puts for Retirement Income
• The Options Strategy Series Hedged Dean Cross

  
  The Options Strategy SeriesHedged