Cash-Secured Put Calculator
Stock and put assumptions
Cash-secured put summary
This reserves the full strike-price cash amount for 100 represented shares. Premium reduces the economic effective purchase price, but this is not a brokerage margin or buying-power calculation. The annualized yield is a mechanical one-period annualization, not an expected return.
Inspect this short put in generic Options Profit/Loss. The stock reference, strike, premium, contract count, and shares per contract carry forward. Days to expiration, secured cash, annualized yield, and the stock-purchase comparison stay with this calculator.
Size this cash-secured put Carries one contract's short-put payoff structure. Your entered contract count, days to expiration, secured-cash amount, and annualized yield do not carry; Position Sizing calculates whole-contract quantity from its own account equity and risk limit.
Continue this put into Wheel Strategy Carries the complete put stage, including its expiration, entered contract count, and adjusted contract size. The hypothetical covered-call sale price, strike, premium, and expiration stay separate and must be entered in the Wheel.
Expiration payoff scenarios
Cash-secured-put P&L uses the same canonical short-put payoff as the Options Profit/Loss Calculator. The stock comparison assumes buying the same represented share count today at the entered current price and ignores interest on cash.
| Stock at expiration | Put obligation | CSP P&L | CSP return on secured cash | Buy-stock-today P&L | CSP vs. buying stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.00 — below strike | $9,500 | -$9,200 | -96.84% | -$10,000 | $800 |
| $92.00 — below strike | $300 | $0 | 0% | -$800 | $800 |
| $95.00 | $0 | $300 | 3.16% | -$500 | $800 |
| $100.00 | $0 | $300 | 3.16% | $0 | $300 |
| $120.00 | $0 | $300 | 3.16% | $2,000 | -$1,700 |
Cash secured does not mean low risk
The full cash reserve is the strike price multiplied by the represented shares. Premium income lowers the expiration breakeven and the economic purchase price if the put is assigned, but the stock can still fall far below that level. If the stock goes to zero, the maximum loss is the strike less the premium received, multiplied by the represented shares.
Effective purchase price = strike − premium per share
Maximum profit = premium per share × represented shares
Maximum loss at $0 stock = (strike − premium per share) × represented shares
A positive purchase-price discount means the strike less premium is below today's entered stock price. A negative value is preserved rather than normalized away: it means the entered strike and premium imply an effective purchase price above the current mark.
What the stock comparison shows
Selling the put can beat buying the stock over some expiration prices because the premium provides a cushion and the effective purchase price can be lower. But the put seller's maximum profit is only the premium. If the stock rallies, buying the shares directly participates in that upside while the unassigned cash-secured put does not.
The comparison is mechanical. It does not include interest earned on reserved cash, dividends from owning stock, taxes, commissions, or differences in capital usage. The effective purchase price shown here is an economic payoff measure, not tax-basis guidance.
Where this calculator stops
This is expiration payoff math, not an option-pricing or probability model. It does not estimate implied volatility, Greeks, probability of profit, probability of assignment, expected return, or a recommended strike or expiration. It does not fetch an option chain or live stock price.
Listed U.S. equity options are generally American-style, so assignment can happen before expiration. The calculator does not model early assignment, dividends or ex-dividend effects, option time value before expiration, closing or rolling the put, bid-ask spreads, commissions, taxes, collateral interest, portfolio margin, broker house rules, buying power, or a later covered-call step in a wheel strategy.
Use the Options Profit/Loss Calculator for generic long/short call and put payoff analysis, the Options Probability Calculator for risk-neutral terminal-price probabilities, or the Covered Call Calculator when you already own shares and are selling a call against them.
Method and contract-size sources
- Options Industry Council: Cash-Secured Put, including cash-reserve, effective purchase-price, maximum-profit, and maximum-loss mechanics.
- Options Clearing Corporation: Equity Options Product Specifications, including the standard 100-share contract unit, adjusted contracts, and American-style exercise.