$HOOD's $100 put pays 34% annualized, but liquidity says wait

The setup in 30 seconds

This is the first “Screen says wait” edition for today’s slots. We screened 13 eligible names from Eddie’s watchlist and checked all 61 returned puts in the required delta bands. None qualified.

Recently featured names were removed before the scan. The remaining universe includes $AAPL, $AEHR, $AKAM, $AMKR, $CDNS, $CRDO, $ENPH, $HOOD, $META, $MRVL, $MU, $PLTR and $SHOP. An attractive number in one column cannot override a failure elsewhere.

The same gates apply to every name

The expiry window is 30–45 calendar days. RSI(14), a momentum measure calculated from completed closes, sets the absolute put-delta band: below 40 uses 0.15–0.20; 40–60 uses 0.20–0.25; above 60 uses 0.25–0.30. Delta describes sensitivity to the stock, not a guaranteed assignment probability.

Each contract also needs at least 500 open contracts, a bid/ask spread no wider than 8% of midpoint, and positive bid pricing. The midpoint must imply at least 12% simple annualized return on strike cash, with breakeven at least 5% below the quoted stock price.

The returned contracts fail the liquidity test

The paired tables show one representative rejected contract per name. Representatives have the fewest failed gates, then the greatest open interest, then the tighter spread. Every returned in-band put was checked; the table is not a substitute for that full scan. A dash means no returned contract met both the expiry and delta filters.

$HOOD comes close, but the minimum still matters

The rejected example is the $HOOD November 6 $100 put, HOOD261106P00100000, with 32 days remaining. Its delayed bid is $2.89 and ask is $3.05, making the midpoint $2.97. The spread is 5.39% of mid, within the 8% cap, but open interest is only 430.

For scale, the arithmetic is $297 of hypothetical credit against $10,000 reserved: 2.97% over 32 days, or 33.88% simple annualized. Breakeven is $97.03, 14.59% below the $113.60 stock quote. Those figures exclude fees, taxes and any loss. The midpoint is not an executable promise.

A higher open-interest threshold is a screening rule, not proof that a contract is safe. Crossing 500 would still require a fresh scan and a separate business, valuation and event review. Today’s rejected example has not been promoted into a trade by rounding 430 upward.

A clean trend does not repair a failed contract

$HOOD’s completed-session RSI is 49.76. Its 20/50/200-day averages are $115.95, $105.40 and $94.33. The stock quote is below the short average but above the longer two. IV30 is 64.49%, versus 69.80% 60-day realized volatility; these measure different things, and no IV-history percentile is claimed.

The timestamps are part of the result

The final collection finished at 09:49 ET. Cboe generation times span 09:16–09:49 ET, and each feed is delayed and asynchronous. $HOOD’s feed was generated at 09:48:45 ET, with its last underlying trade at 09:33:44 ET. Technical calculations use Yahoo’s completed daily closes through October 2.

Patience keeps the cash available

No earnings date, ex-dividend date, valuation or news claim is needed to reject these contracts on the screen. Those checks remain mandatory before any future qualifying setup. A later pass would be a new observation, with new prices and event risk, rather than permission to reuse this ledger.

Beginner corner: a yearly number is not yearly income

Simple annualization multiplies the period return by 365 divided by days to expiry. It assumes comparable opportunities could repeat, without accounting for losing trades or idle cash. Waiting sacrifices today’s possible premium but avoids accepting a contract that fails the stated rules.

Photo: Billie Grace Ward / Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Cropped and resized.