Cash-secured puts on UNH
UnitedHealth Group was trading at $416.86 when this page was last refreshed on August 3, 2026. 16 out-of-the-money UNH puts sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band, paying $216 to $445 a contract against $39,000 of cash you would have to set aside per contract. None 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 | Cash secured | Annualized | Keep odds | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 14 11d | $397.50 | $2.07 / $2.25 | $216 | $39,750 | 18.0% | 80% | $395.34 |
| August 21 18d | $395.00 | $2.85 / $3.20 | $303 | $39,500 | 15.5% | 80% | $391.98 |
| August 28 25d | $390.00 | $3.05 / $3.45 | $325 | $39,000 | 12.2% | 82% | $386.75 |
| September 4 32d | $390.00 | $4.05 / $4.85 | $445 | $39,000 | 13.0% | 79% | $385.55 |
| September 11 39d | $385.00 | $4.10 / $4.60 | $435 | $38,500 | 10.6% | 81% | $380.65 |
One row per expiration: the out-of-the-money strike closest to the middle of the delta band. The cash-secured column is the full obligation, strike times 100, because that is the capital the return has to be measured against and it is the number most screeners quietly leave out.
The capital number is the trade
Every screener quotes a cash-secured put by its premium. The premium is the small number. Selling the $390.00 put expiring September 4 pays $445 and commits $39,000 in cash for 32 days, which works out to 1.1% on the money you tied up, or 13.0% annualized.
Your break-even is $385.55, 7.5% below where the stock was trading. That is the price you would effectively be buying 100 shares at if you get assigned, and it is the only number that should decide the strike. One question, asked honestly: would you buy UNH at $385.55 and hold it? If the answer is no, $445 is not the reason to say yes.
What the premium is priced off
29% at the money is a normal tape for UNH. The premium is fair, not generous.
Can you actually get filled
Median bid-ask spread is 11.6% of the mid, widening to 18.0% on the worst strike here. Workable, but do not send a market order. Open interest is thin, 61 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 (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
The earnings calendar was checked and came back clean for the 45-day window. Worth confirming yourself before you write anything: calendars move, and an unconfirmed date is not the same as no date. The stock pays about 2.1% a year, and no ex-dividend date was confirmed inside this window.
The worst case, stated properly
Max loss on this trade is $38,555, which is what you lose if UNH goes to zero. Nobody plans for zero. A 25% gap on bad news is not exotic though, and on the $390.00 strike that is roughly $7,291 of unrealized loss against $445 collected. 16 cycles of premium, in one print.
That is the picking-up-pennies critique and it describes the risk correctly. It is a bad argument against the strategy and a very good argument for position sizing, because the trade goes wrong when eight positions in the same sector gap together, not when one does.
What the annualized column hides
The best annualized number in this ladder is 18.0%, on the $397.50 strike expiring August 14. It is $216 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.
Questions people actually ask
How much cash do you need to sell a put on UNH?
Strike times 100 per contract, in full. On the $390.00 strike above that is $39,000 sitting in the account per contract, doing nothing else for 32 days. A broker that lets you post less is giving you margin, which is a different trade with a different risk profile whatever the ticket calls it.
What is the break-even on a UNH cash-secured put?
Strike minus the premium per share. On the $390.00 strike expiring September 4 that is $385.55, which is 7.5% below where the stock was at the snapshot. Below that price you are down money on the position, premium included.
Is selling puts on UNH a good idea right now?
This page does not answer that, and neither does the number of strikes in the table. What the app can say is that at the last refresh none of the 16 in-band UNH puts cleared its 75 confidence bar. Read what that bar guarantees, and the disclaimer, before you treat any of this as a view.
None of these is a pick. This is a dated snapshot of the UNH chain from August 3, 2026, and an option chain from last week is history, not a quote.