NFLX options, measured
Netflix, Inc.
Spreads averaged +5.0% a trade, but the interval reaches below zero and 2026 to date is the worst year. Its spreads had the loosest tie to QQQ of any single stock we tested.
Selling puts on NFLX
| Cash-secured put | Put credit spread | |
|---|---|---|
| Average per trade | +0.4% | +5.0% |
| Per trade, on | the cash set aside | the dollars at risk |
| 95% interval | -0.2% to +0.9% | -0.8% to +10.1% |
| Trades won | 91% | 83% |
| Worst trade | -36% | -100% |
| Trades | 251 over 128 months | 241 over 127 months |
A spread's worst trade is always close to the whole risk: when it loses, it loses the width at once. Returns on the two structures are on different bases, so compare each with its own capital, not with each other.
Year by year
| Year | Average per trade |
|---|---|
| 2016 | +14% |
| 2017 | +15% |
| 2018 | -2% |
| 2019 | +5% |
| 2020 | +24% |
| 2021 | -3% |
| 2022 | +7% |
| 2023 | +9% |
| 2024 | +11% |
| 2025 | -4% |
| 2026 | -29% |
What to know about NFLX
Put credit spreads with the wing 5% below averaged +5.0% of the dollars at risk per trade (-0.8% to +10.1%, 95% interval) over 241 spreads, won 83% of the time and were positive in 7 of the 11 years with at least five spreads. The worst year was 2026, at -29.0% a trade, and the worst single spread lost 100.4% of its risk.
Netflix's best year was 2020 (+24.4% a spread) and its worst is 2026 to date (-29.0%), which on its own pulls the eleven-year average down. In 2022, when QQQ's spreads averaged -5.4%, Netflix's averaged +7.0%. Its worst cash-secured put lost 36.4% of the cash set aside, and three entries were left out because a stock split fell inside the trade.
The cash-secured put averaged +0.4% of the cash set aside per trade over 251 trades, won 91% of the time, and its worst trade lost 36.4%. Its spread results correlated 0.32 with QQQ's spreads month by month, so it is a partly separate bet from a Nasdaq position.
This is a single company, and the replay does not skip earnings, so every earnings gap is in these numbers. A single stock can also fall for reasons that have nothing to do with the market.
Entries before March 2022 are priced from daily closing prices with a measured haircut; later entries use the real bid and ask.
Month to month, NFLX's spread results correlated 0.32 with QQQ's.
How these numbers were made: a 25-delta put 30 to 45 days out, entered roughly weekly from January 2016 to September 2026 and held to expiry, the spread with a long put 5% below. Shorts at the bid, longs at the ask, fees included; before March 2022 prices come from daily closes with a haircut measured against real quotes. Intervals come from a month-clustered bootstrap. These are historical replays, not live quotes and not a forecast; every result, including the ones that failed, is on the track record. This is education, not a recommendation to trade anything.