For those with their fingers on the pulse of the stock market, Apple Inc (Symbol: AAPL) has been a perennial favorite. Among the various options on the watchlist at Stock Options Channel, we shine a light on an intriguing put contract and a fascinating call contract from the January 2026 expiration for AAPL this week.
Our YieldBoost algorithm singled out the $105 strike put contract as especially captivating with a bid of $1.60 at the time of this writing. Collecting this bid as a premium represents a 1.5% return against the $105 commitment, or a 0.8% annualized rate of return (referred to as the YieldBoost at Stock Options Channel).
Selling a put doesn’t offer an investor the same access to AAPL’s upside potential as owning shares would. This is because the put seller only ends up owning shares if the contract is exercised. Therefore, the only upside to the put seller is from collecting the premium for the 0.8% annualized rate of return unless Apple Inc sees its shares decline by 44.1% and the contract is exercised, resulting in a cost basis of $103.40 per share before broker commissions (subtracting the $1.60 from $105).
It’s worth noting that the annualized 0.8% figure actually exceeds the 0.5% annualized dividend paid by Apple Inc, based on the current share price of $188.00. However, buying the stock at the market price to collect the dividend presents a greater downside because the stock would need to decrease by 44.15% to reach the $105 strike price.
When considering dividends, it’s important to remember that dividend amounts are not always predictable and tend to fluctuate with a company’s profitability. Studying the dividend history chart for AAPL can aid in assessing whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue and whether it is reasonable to expect a 0.5% annualized dividend yield.
Turning to the other side of the option chain, we draw attention to one call contract of particular interest for the January 2026 expiration, for shareholders of Apple Inc (Symbol: AAPL) who are seeking to enhance their income beyond the stock’s 0.5% annualized dividend yield, selling the covered call at the $220 strike and collecting the premium based on the $16.65 bid. This annualizes to an additional 4.6% rate of return against the current stock price (referred to as the YieldBoost at Stock Options Channel), for a total of 5.1% annualized rate if the stock is not called away. Any upside above $220 would be lost if the stock rises there and is called away, but AAPL shares would have to advance 17% from current levels for that to happen, indicating that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 25.9% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.
The chart above and the stock’s historical volatility can be helpful in combination with fundamental analysis to evaluate whether selling the January 2026 put or call options highlighted in this article could deliver a rate of return that represents a good reward for the risks. The trailing twelve month volatility for Apple Inc (considering the last 250 trading day AAPL historical stock prices using closing values, as well as today’s price of $188.00) is calculated to be 19%.
In mid-afternoon trading on Monday, the put volume among S&P 500 components was 2.19M contracts, with call volume at 3.92M, resulting in a put:call ratio of 0.56 for the day so far. Compared to the long-term median put:call ratio of .65, this represents high call volume relative to puts, indicating a preference for calls in options trading so far today.
Find out which 15 call and put options traders are talking about today. Top YieldBoost AAPL Calls »
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
