The best stocks for the wheel, measured

How we measured them

The same rule as the ETF ranking: sell a 25-delta put 30 to 45 days out, roughly weekly, from January 2016 to September 2026, at the bid a seller receives, held to expiry. The put leg is where the wheel's income comes from, so the table ranks it by average return per trade on the cash set aside. Beside it is a put credit spread with the wing 5% below, measured on the dollars at risk, and QQQ for comparison.

Two things are different from a fund. The replay does not skip earnings, so every earnings gap is in these numbers, and entries where a stock split fell inside the trade were dropped. Entries before March 2022 are priced from daily closes with a measured haircut; later ones use the real bid and ask.

Results by ticker

What the ranking says

TSLA had the highest average put, +1.0% of the cash set aside per trade, and NVDA the strongest spread, +9.5% of the dollars at risk with an interval of +3.8% to +14.6%. MSFT was the steadiest: its worst put lost 12.5%, the mildest of the five, and its spread interval stayed above zero. AMZN and AAPL earned about what QQQ did on the put, +0.5% a trade, and both spread intervals include zero.

TSLA shows why the put alone can mislead. Its put averaged the most, but its spread averaged only +0.4% with an interval from -6.2% to +6.2% and won 76% of the time, the lowest here. Rich premium paid the put seller as long as the cash set aside could absorb the gaps; capped at a fixed width, the same gaps took most of it back.

The worst trades come from the company

Every stock here had a worst put between -12.5% and -23.7% of the cash set aside, the same range as QQQ's worst, -21.5%. The difference is how they get there. A fund falls that far in a market crash; a single stock can do it on a calm day, on an earnings miss or news about one company.

So size a single-stock wheel on the gap, not on the average. The options profit calculator shows the loss at any price, and position sizing for option sellers covers how much of an account to put at risk.

Five stocks, mostly one bet

Their monthly spread results moved with QQQ's, with correlations from 0.35 for TSLA to 0.65 for NVDA. A wheel on NVDA, MSFT and AAPL is mostly a wheel on the Nasdaq with company risk added, which is why ten correlated tickers are about two bets.

Against QQQ itself the case for a single stock is thin. The fund's put averaged +0.5% with an interval of +0.2% to +0.7%, and its spread +6.0% with every year but two positive. NVDA, MSFT and TSLA averaged more on the put, +0.7% to +1.0%, but only NVDA's spread beat the fund's, and every stock adds company risk on top. If you want a second position that is not the Nasdaq, the ETF ranking is the place to look.