Premium Junkies · Episode 20 · Afternoon Session
CASHED THE CHAMP
This morning we sold every Palantir share we owned, closed the whole ladder, and locked ~$1.82M. Today's teaching segment: how a book gets de-risked on purpose — less delta, less vega, the tail gone, and $12.35M of powder that gets PAID to wait.
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The Format
01
Portfolio Reviews
your accounts, on screen
02
Live Trading
the family office, in real time
03
Teaching Segment
the de-risk — dial by dial
04
Fix My Trade
today's submission from the mailbag
Segments 01 · 02
PORTFOLIO REVIEWS & LIVE TRADING
Net liq $18.66M · day −$753K on the marks (that number excludes the ~$1.82M PLTR gain we realized) · YTD +$4.44M · theta $37,071/day · BP a comfortable 54%. MU prints Wednesday — and it walks in as a clean covered-call engine, puts closed, every rung backed by stock.
Segment 03 · Teaching Segment
THE DE-RISK
De-risking isn't selling everything and hiding. It's turning four dials at once — delta, vega, the tail, and the powder — while staying paid and staying pointed at re-entry. Today we did it live. Here's the anatomy.
The De-Risk · The Move · PLTR, before and after
From shares-and-ladder to pure puts
| Before (this morning) | After (now) |
|---|
| Shares | 40,000 @ $143.07 avg · spot ~$189 | ZERO — all sold · ~$1.82M realized, the YTD champ banked |
| Call ladder | $240/$270/$330/$400 · ~$49.6M notional · naked above the first rung | CLOSED — the book's single biggest melt-up tail, gone |
| Put side | $120P backstop | −1,000 × $120P (250 Jan-27 + 750 Dec-27) · $12M notional · fully cash-secured · glad to own at −36% |
| The cash | — | parked: SGOV to 100,000 shares (~$10.1M) · ~$30K/month in dividends |
Remember Episode 17's PNR Trap? The first open door on the whole book was PLTR $270 — the strike the broker's stress test couldn't even see. As of this morning, that door doesn't exist. We didn't just manage the risk the platform missed. We deleted it.
The De-Risk · The Four Dials
What one move did to the whole book
Dial 1 · Delta
DOWN
40,000 uncapped shares → ~$12M of cushioned put exposure. Still long PLTR — smaller, defined, paid.
Dial 2 · Vega
DOWN
the ladder's short vega retired with it; short-call notional book-wide: $166M → $99.5M
Dial 3 · The tail
GONE
no naked upper rungs on PLTR — the one scenario that could run away from us is off the board
Dial 4 · Powder
UP 2.3×
$5.36M → $12.35M · $2.3M cash + $10.1M SGOV — and it pays ~$30K/month to exist
The theta eased from $43K to $37,071/day — that's the honest price of a smaller book: ~$1.11M/month if it holds. We traded a slice of the paycheck for a fortress. Into the midterms window, with a print two days away, that's the trade we've been TELLING you we'd make. Today we made it.
The De-Risk · The Honest Cost
What we gave up — said plainly, like always
The bill
- PLTR above ~$189 is no longer ours. 40,000 uncapped shares became puts that earn premium and re-own at $120 — if the champ keeps sprinting without us, we watch, capped, from the waiting room.
- The theta engine runs ~$6K/day lighter.
- And a realized ~$1.82M gain is a real tax line this year — banked wins get taxed; paper wins don't.
Why we paid it
- A locked $1.82M plus $12.35M of optionality is worth more right now — into a print, into the midterm chop we expect — than open-ended upside on a name that had already tripled our basis.
- Nothing reactive: this is the reserve and melt-up defense we game-planned last week, funded.
- And "capped" isn't "gone" — the re-entry is already written. Next slide.
The De-Risk · The Waiting Room Pays Rent
Every horse we want, and the price we've named for it
| Name | Structure | Total notional | The deal |
|---|
| PLTR | 1,000 × $120P · Jan-27/Dec-27 | $12.0M | bullish via puts · re-own at −36% from spot · cash-secured |
| MSTR | 2,000 × $100P + 100 × $120P | ~$21.2M | the bull case via puts, not stock · glad to own |
| SPCX | 1,000 × $100P + 100 × $120P | $11.2M | re-earning the seat · added today |
| RIOT | 5,000 × $15P · Jan-28 | $7.5M | paid to earn entry on a name we want |
| CLSK | 5,000 × $12P · Jan-28 | $6.0M | assignment welcome · 2032 target $50 |
| NBIS | 550 puts ($100P/$150P) | ~$9.5M | data-center tailwind · happy to own |
| + SGOV | 100,000 shares · ~$10.1M | ~$30,000/MONTH in T-bill dividends while all of the above decays our way — $11.5M of extrinsic working |
Read the room we're sitting in: six horses, every one with a named price, every promise collecting rent, and the bench itself earning $30K a month. Patience with a paycheck, at scale.
The De-Risk · What We're Actually Waiting For
Rebuilding the North Star — on our terms only
The bag today
360,000 sh · $17.5M
MU · SOFI · ENPH carry it → $65M at 2032 targets (3.7×) — plus the BMNR moonshot LEAPs riding
Re-entry trigger 1
Assignment
any horse falls to its strike → we're handed the shares at the price we already blessed, premium included
Re-entry trigger 2
The big dump
a real flush and the $12.35M shops by CHOICE — 100,000 RIOT / CleanSpark on sale, no waiting for strikes
We want to be long shares of our horses — at our price. Until the market offers one, we hold three seats, six promises, and a bench that pays. The bag shrank on purpose, again: every seat that left, left at a profit, and left a paid re-entry behind it. That's not retreat. That's how the North Star gets rebuilt — cheaper, cleaner, and funded by the wins we banked on the way out.
The De-Risk · The Takeaway for Your Own Book
The de-risk checklist
1
De-risk into strength, not into panic. We sold the champ at ~$189 against a $143 basis — green, liquid, on our schedule. The worst time to shrink a book is when the market is forcing you to.
2
Turn all four dials, not one. Delta down, vega down, tail deleted, powder up. Selling shares without closing the calls would have left naked rungs — HALF a de-risk is sometimes worse than none.
3
Stay engaged through promises. Flat isn't the goal — we're still long every thesis we believe, expressed at strikes we chose, collecting while we wait.
4
Make the waiting room pay. Powder in T-bills earns ~$30K/month here. Cash that earns nothing burns patience; cash that pays rent builds it.
Segment 04
FIX MY TRADE
Today's submission is loading from the mailbag — four questions ready: original objective · OK with any outcome · net credit or debit · fix or band-aid.
Premium Junkies · Episode 20
DE-RISKED, NOT DISENGAGED
The champ is banked. The tail is gone. The powder is paid. And every horse we love has a price on its stall door. Ultimately, the name of the game is flexibility. Collect 2 Capture.
Educational content only, not financial advice. Options involve substantial risk, including assignment and total loss of premium. Figures are our family's own, reconciled to the September 28, 2026 midday pull (account referenced by last two digits only); day P/L is mark-based and excludes the ~$1.82M realized PLTR gain; positions may change at any time. Consult a CPA on realized-gain and wash-sale questions. Fix My Trade figures come from submitters' own statements. No performance or income is promised or implied.
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