Covered calls on LLY
Eli Lilly and Company was trading at $1,117 when this page was last refreshed on August 3, 2026. 73 out-of-the-money LLY calls sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band that covered call writers work in, paying $1,090 to $1,600 a contract. None of them cleared the confidence bar.
Numbers on this page come from a snapshot taken on August 3, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 14 11d | $1,230 | $8.10 / $13.70 | $1,090 | 32.4% | 80% | $1,241 | 53 |
| August 21 18d | $1,240 | $11.00 / $13.20 | $1,210 | 22.0% | 80% | $1,252 | 548 |
| August 28 25d | $1,255 | $11.30 / $18.00 | $1,465 | 19.2% | 80% | $1,270 | 9 |
| September 4 32d | $1,265 | $11.00 / $19.00 | $1,500 | 15.3% | 80% | $1,280 | 2 |
| September 11 39d | $1,275 | $12.00 / $20.00 | $1,600 | 13.4% | 80% | $1,291 | 0 |
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
44% 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 50.0% of the mid, and the worst strike here is 53.3%. At those widths the quoted premium is close to fiction. Work the order, or write a different expiry. Open interest is thin, 9 contracts at the median strike. You can get into a position like that far more easily than you can get out of it. 3 expiries in this ladder have almost no open interest at all (August 28, September 4, September 11), 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. An ex-dividend date also falls inside the window, and that matters more for a covered call than most people expect. A call holder sitting on an in-the-money contract can exercise early to capture the dividend, which takes your shares before expiry and before you collected the last of the time value.
What the annualized column hides
The best annualized number in this ladder is 32.4%, on the $1,230 strike expiring August 14. It is $1,090 of actual cash. It annualizes well because it is an 11-day contract, and annualizing a two-week trade assumes you find twenty-six more like it, at the same premium, with the same risk. You will not.
If it gets called away
Take the $1,265 strike expiring September 4. You collect $1,500 up front. If LLY finishes above $1,265 your 100 shares are sold there, and the 13.3% move from $1,117 up to the strike is yours as well. Everything above it is not. The model puts the odds of keeping the premium at about 80%, so assignment on this one is a real possibility rather than a footnote.
The number nobody checks is the cost basis. If you paid more than $1,265 for these shares, that strike locks in a loss on the stock, and $1,500 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 August 3, 2026 snapshot that meant $1,230 out to $1,275, 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 32.4%, and the cash it represents was $1,090 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 itself said nothing on this ticker cleared its 75 confidence bar at the last refresh. See how the confidence gate works and the full disclaimer.
None of these is a pick. This is a dated snapshot of the LLY chain from August 3, 2026, and an option chain from last week is history, not a quote.