P2 — The QQQ - Long Synthetic and PMCC Covered Calls: A Full Recap

We run two different QQQ covered-call structures in Portfolio 2 — and with our covered-call Office Hours coming up, this is the perfect moment to lay both of them out.

A roll-by-roll look at our two QQQ income trades

We run two different QQQ covered-call structures in Portfolio 2 — and with our covered-call Office Hours coming up, this is the perfect moment to lay both of them out, every roll, with the real numbers. No cherry-picking: here’s exactly what each trade has done.

First, the one thing to understand before the numbers: a covered call is two pieces — a long “stock” leg and a short call sold against it. When the underlying rallies, the short call goes against you (you roll it up at a debit) while the long leg gains more. So the short-call roll P&L below, on its own, is only half the story — it has to be read next to the long leg. Both trades show this clearly.

Short-delta portion = realized P&L on the closed rolls plus the current mark on the open short call (721 −$74, 719 −$33 — both opened today). All marks current: 610 LEAP $156.20, 717 call $36.08, 717 put $11.00, 721 call $21.08, 719 call $22.22; realized rolls from actual fills, fees included. The two open short calls still hold ~$4,223 of credit that decays in our favor if QQQ stays below their strikes.

The pattern is the textbook covered-call-in-a-rally: the short-delta portion is red (you capped a rising stock), but the long-delta portion gains more — the synthetic’s +$2,473 alone more than covers both trades’ roll costs. Counting everything together — the closed rolls plus every open leg marked to today — the two QQQ trades are net +$977, with another ~$4,223 of premium still working in the open short calls. You don’t catch the full melt-up, but you carry the move and keep compounding income.

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The Lesson

This is exactly why we run these structures, and what TonyB means by “the goal is not to maximize any single roll.”