As of December 20, 2024, MRK (Merck & Co., Inc.) has opportunities for wheel options strategy trades and covered call trades in the next six weeks.
| MRK Top Wheel Trades (Cash-secured Puts) | |||||||
| Expiration | Strike | Premium | Return | Ann Return | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 27 | 99.0 | 0.78 | 0.8% | 50% | |||
| Jan 24 | 99.0 | 3.34 | 3.4% | 41% | |||
| Jan 03 | 99.0 | 1.23 | 1.3% | 38% | |||
| Jan 31 | 99.0 | 3.09 | 3.1% | 30% | |||
| Jan 17 | 97.5 | 1.81 | 1.9% | 27% | |||
| Mar 21 | 100.0 | 4.7 | 4.7% | 20% | |||
| Jan 10 | 99.0 | 1.05 | 1.1% | 20% | |||
| MRK Top Covered Call Trades | |||||||
| Expiration | Strike | Premium | Return | Ann Return | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 17 | 97.5 | 2.67 | 2.7% | 42% | |||
| Jan 31 | 99.0 | 4.0 | 4.0% | 41% | |||
| Jan 03 | 99.0 | 1.12 | 1.1% | 33% | |||
| Jan 24 | 99.0 | 2.64 | 2.7% | 31% | |||
| Dec 27 | 99.0 | 0.51 | 0.5% | 30% | |||
| Jan 10 | 99.0 | 1.38 | 1.4% | 27% | |||
| Feb 21 | 100.0 | 3.45 | 3.5% | 21% | |||
*Data is EOD. Sign up for real-time data
Explore more expirations, adjust parameters, and more for MRK and thousands of other stocks with our wheel strategy option scanner.
Start Scanning Now For Free →Many factors determine whether or not a particular stock is a good candidate for the wheel strategy. Read our guide on choosing the best wheel stocks. Ultimately, it is best to familiarize yourself with the wheel strategy and determine which criteria work best for your trading method. However, it is generally accepted that there are several key criteria to consider when evaluating a stock as a wheel candidate. Here is how MRK stacks up:
| Good Wheel Stocks | MRK |
|---|---|
| Market Cap > $10B | Yes |
| Mid-Range Volatility | No |
| Good Liquidity | Yes |
| Offers Dividends | Yes |
Generally speaking, the further the expiration date is in the future, the higher the premium will be because of the time value of the contract. Options lose value as they approach expiration, a process known as theta decay. However, there are instances where a stock may have options premiums that are abnormally high. This can be due to an earnings announcement, an ex-dividend date, or other factors.
The Premium Pirates High Returns Option Scanner is the fastest and easiest way to find the highest premiums on MRK and thousands of other stocks.
Start Scanning Now For Free →You can open a MRK wheel campaign by selling a cash-secured put, at which point your broker will hold 100 times the value of the strike price of every contract you sell as collateral. Or, you can open a MRK wheel campaign by buying 100 shares of MRK and selling a covered call per covered call contract.
Whenever you have open risk on a symbol, the campaign is considered “open”. The campaign is “closed” when your open risk goes to $0.
Tracking the performance of a wheel campaign or a covered call can be difficult because your broker only wants to show changes in the underlying asset's price. It cannot account for the “premium” or income you captured by selling the contract. Many wheel strategy traders resort to trying to track their campaigns through a tool that wasn’t designed for it, which is clunky. More commonly, they resort to tracking their wheel campaigns via spreadsheet, which is time-consuming and subject to errors.
Premium Pirates has automated campaign tracking specifically designed for the wheel strategy that allows you to track premiums over time, open risk, and a number of other things about your wheel campaigns. Try it for free at any time.