Covered calls on LLY
Eli Lilly and Company was trading at $1,143 when this page was last refreshed on September 16, 2026. 45 out-of-the-money LLY calls sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band that covered call writers work in, paying $490 to $1,705 a contract. Not one of them came back with a score, which usually means the liquidity screen ate the chain.
Numbers on this page come from a snapshot taken on September 16, 2026. They are not live quotes and are not refreshed when you load the page.
| Expiry | Strike | Bid / ask | Premium | Annualized | Keep odds | Break-even | OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 25 9d | $1,205 | $0.55 / $9.25 | $490 | 17.4% | 81% | $1,210 | 51 |
| October 2 16d | $1,215 | $7.85 / $9.95 | $890 | 17.8% | 80% | $1,224 | 36 |
| October 9 23d | $1,230 | $8.25 / $16.15 | $1,220 | 16.9% | 78% | $1,242 | 38 |
| October 16 30d | $1,260 | $7.95 / $9.95 | $895 | 9.5% | 82% | $1,269 | 640 |
| October 23 37d | $1,260 | $8.85 / $17.60 | $1,323 | 11.4% | 80% | $1,273 | 2 |
| October 30 44d | $1,300 | $14.45 / $19.65 | $1,705 | 12.4% | 80% | $1,317 | 14 |
One row per expiration: the out-of-the-money strike closest to the middle of the delta band, which is the strike you would actually be looking at on that expiry. Break-even on a covered call is your own cost basis minus the premium, not the strike minus the premium, so the column above is the strike-side break-even and yours depends on what you paid for the shares.
What the premium is priced off
34% at the money is well above a market-average tape. You get paid more here. You get paid more here because it moves more.
Can you actually get filled
Median bid-ask spread is 64.8% of the mid, and the worst strike here is 177.6%. At those widths the quoted premium is close to fiction. Work the order, or write a different expiry. Open interest is thin, 38 contracts at the median strike. You can get into a position like that far more easily than you can get out of it. 2 expiries in this ladder have almost no open interest at all (October 23, October 30), and a strike nobody else holds is a strike you will be negotiating your way out of alone.
Dates that matter in this window
Earnings land inside the 45-day window. That is the one date that reliably breaks a premium-selling trade: the stock gaps, the strike you picked on a probability model turns out to have been picked on the wrong distribution, and the vol you sold collapses to reward the buyer instead of you. The engine deducts heavily for it. The stock pays about 0.6% a year, and no ex-dividend date was confirmed inside this window.
What the annualized column hides
The best annualized number in this ladder is 17.8%, on the $1,215 strike expiring October 2. It is $890 of actual cash. Over 16 days that is 0.8% in the hand, which is the number to compare against anything else you could do with the same capital. The near expiry is close behind at 17.4%, with a lot less time for the position to go wrong.
If it gets called away
Take the $1,260 strike expiring October 16. You collect $895 up front. If LLY finishes above $1,260 your 100 shares are sold there, and the 10.2% move from $1,143 up to the strike is yours as well. Everything above it is not. The model puts the odds of keeping the premium without being assigned at about 82%, which is the whole point of writing that far out.
The number nobody checks is the cost basis. If you paid more than $1,260 for these shares, that strike locks in a loss on the stock, and $895 of premium does not repair it. A covered call is only a good trade at a strike you would genuinely accept selling at.
Questions people actually ask
What is a good strike for a covered call on LLY?
The strikes above are the ones in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band, which is where premium sellers targeting roughly an 80% chance of keeping the premium tend to sit. On the September 16, 2026 snapshot that meant $1,205 out to $1,300, depending on how far out you go. The right one for you is the lowest strike you would still be happy selling your shares at.
How much can you make selling covered calls on LLY?
The best annualized figure in the ladder above was 17.8%, and the cash it represents was $890 for one contract. Annualized numbers assume you repeat the trade all year at the same premium, which nobody does. Treat them as a way to compare expiries, not as a forecast.
Does OptionsKing recommend selling calls on LLY?
No. This page is a dated snapshot of the chain, not a recommendation, and the app has no opinion to offer beyond an ordering. It scores every in-band strike and shows you the best few by rank, with no minimum score anywhere, so a refresh that scored nothing on this ticker would have handed you an empty list for want of candidates, not for want of quality. See how the scoring works and the full disclaimer.
None of these is a pick. This is a dated snapshot of the LLY chain from September 16, 2026, and an option chain from last week is history, not a quote.