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Poor Man's Covered Call
growth Capped lossA capital-light covered call using a LEAPS.
⚠ Backtest data is currently unreliable for PMCC — taught only, excluded from automatic income picks pending a re-run.
When to use it
Substitute for a covered call: buy a deep-ITM long-dated call (70–80 delta), sell short-term OTM calls against it.
Max profit
Capped by the short call each cycle.
Max loss
The long-call debit.
Payoff at expiry
illustrative shape — not to scale
■ profit zone
■ loss zone
X axis = stock price at expiry →
How it's built
Strikes shown low→high. Sell = collect premium · Buy = pay premium for protection or upside.
Hermes-evaluated setups
Best backtested per-ticker setups for this strategy. None currently clear our 80% conviction floor (common for directional / long-volatility structures, which win less often but pay more when they hit) — shown for completeness over ≥20 trades. Win rate is confidence-adjusted (95% lower bound); Avg P/L is per one-contract position.
| Ticker | Win Rate | Avg P/L / contract | Sharpe | Trades | DTE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HYG | 64% | +$39 | 1.2 | 55 | — |
| CIFR | 57% | +$19 | 1.3 | 45 | — |
| IREN | 56% | +$42 | 1.5 | 42 | — |
Backtested results are not a guarantee of future performance.