It’s the last Friday of 2025. I hope you had a blast celebrating Christmas. Now we’re gearing up for New Year’s Eve and welcoming 2026.
I was pondering what to write today about some unusual options activity, and I thought it might be fitting to reflect a bit before the year wraps up. We needed an interesting but slightly retrospective theme.
I often like to look back at how past options strategies played out, regardless of whether they were successful. It’s all about accountability for us investors, myself included.
With that in mind, I decided to check if the same three stocks could perform similarly over the next month. Here’s what I discovered.
Have a fantastic weekend!
TSLA, HOOD, FDX put options available from November 26th
To start, there’s the Tesla Dec. 26 $390 put, which had a bid price of $8.15. Its volume to open interest (Vol/OI) ratio was 1.39, exceeding the cutoff of 1.24. On November 26, Tesla closed at $426.58, and as of December 23, it climbed 13.8% over the previous 18 trading days.
[$8.15 bid price / $390 strike price – $8.15 bid price * 365 / 30 days]. Income here seems stable, and the likelihood of shares swapping hands appears low.
Next is Robinhood. There were two options available: the $115 put, which was out of the money (OTM) by 11.5%, and the $120 put, OTM by 6.8%. When you’re selling a put, it’s wise to aim for a strike that’s at least 10% OTM for better safety.
The stock closed at $120.24 on December 23, so the $115 strike would provide some cushion. However, since the stock has dropped nearly 22% from its peak of $153.86 in early October, the chance of it ending up deep in the money (ITM) by December 26 seems slim.
In a worst-case scenario for the $120 strike, you’d end up acquiring the stock at $114.85. [$120 strike price – $5.15 bid price], which is definitely a better entry point than it was a couple of months ago.
An exercise of the $115 strike could yield a 40.3% annualized return. [$3.65 bid price / $115 strike price – $3.65 bid price * 365 / 30 days]. That’s pretty solid. The return for a $120 strike is even higher at 54.9% annualized. [$5.15 bid price / $120 strike price – $5.15 bid price * 365 / 30 days]. Still looks reasonable.
Then there’s FedEx with a $270 put at a bid of $9.10. Its Vol/OI ratio stood at 1.33, and on November 26, FedEx closed at $275.83. By December 23, it had risen 7.0% across 18 business days, and it’s unlikely the stock will drop below $270 by the end of trading on Friday. The annual put return would be 42.6%. [$9.10 bid price / $270 strike price – $9.10 bid price * 365 / 30 days].
I like the looks of that.
Can it go above 35%?
Honestly, I can’t see why you wouldn’t aim for that. Just joking! It’s tricky to consistently generate a 35% annual return from puts, but we can certainly give it a shot.
Tesla should offer the best opportunity for higher returns given its substantial options volume. Tesla’s 30-day average is around 2.28 million compared to HOOD’s 277,050 and FDX’s 14,910. You get where I’m going.
The bid price for that $390 strike, which I mentioned earlier, is currently around $1.86 based on 31 days until expiration. That translates to an annualized return of about 5.6%, which is significantly lower than the 25.55% return during the previous 30 days from November 26 to December 23. It should ideally align closer to that number.
The annualized return for a $455 put expiring on January 23, 2026, stands at 29.3%. While that’s decent, the Vol/OI ratio is only 0.14, far below the threshold of 1.24.
Given the limited options there, we should look at a different date. The $457.50 put expiring January 9, 2026, has 17 days left, with a bid price of $6.25 and an annualized return of 29.7%. Its Vol/OI ratio is at 9.45.
OTM has risen by 5.46%, and we still have good profit probability at 78.19%. We might need to consider January 9, 2026 puts for HOOD and FDX as well.
The bid price is $1.04, giving us an annualized return of 21.1% and a Vol/OI ratio of 3.43. Plus, the profit probability at 86.05% suggests a high chance that the stock will exceed the breakeven point of $105.96 within 17 days.
Lastly, we have FedEx, which might be the trickiest of the trio. Options for the January 9, 2026 put strike price show Vol/OI ratios below 1.24. Plus, the quantities of remaining January expirations aren’t encouraging either.
FedEx is expected to exit in January with revenue in mind.
