From Strike Selection to Order Execution: Selling Your First Cash-Secured Put
Speaker: Samuel Wong, Investment Representative at Tiger Brokers, walks through the practical checklist for choosing a put to sell, then goes hands-on with a live Nvidia example on the Tiger app.
[About the Speaker]
Samuel Wong is a trader with over 5 years of experience across precious metals and cryptocurrency, and 2 years of technical experience in derivatives spanning US options, futures, and SGX-listed DLCs. He is an in-house trainer and speaker for Tiger Brokers, and an Investment Representative for Tiger Brokers Singapore.
[The Hook] "It's easy to teach theory," Samuel said, "but the one thing that investment representatives want to do is not just give lectures — we also want to give a guiding hand." So he picked a name everyone in the room already knew — $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ — and built a real trade on screen, strike by strike.
[The Pre-Trade Checklist]
Before opening the options chain, Samuel walked through five filters he applies every time:
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Willingness to own the stock. "You need to sell puts on companies that you actually want to own in your portfolio, not [because] everyone's talking about it."
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A bullish-to-neutral market outlook, plus an identifiable trend or support level.
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Implied volatility (IV). High IV means richer premium for the seller — but also a higher chance of assignment.
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Time horizon. Too short, and you collect too little premium. Too long, and your cash is tied up with poor annualized return. Samuel's sweet spot: 35–45 days, "around four to six weeks."
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Strike price selection. A conservative strike 10–15% below market builds a buffer against normal price noise, reducing the chance of an unwanted early assignment from routine volatility.
[Case Study: Selling a Put on $NVIDIA(NVDA)$]
Pulling up $NVIDIA(NVDA)$'s options chain, Samuel filtered to puts only, picked an expiration roughly a month out, and zoomed into the price chart: the stock had bounced twice off the $190 level, and RSI was drifting toward oversold.
He landed on the $195 strike, for two reasons:
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Delta around -0.20 — implying roughly an 80% estimated win rate for the seller
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$190 had already shown up as a key support zone
"I wouldn't want to sell options that are further out of the money, because they'll carry less premium. So $195 here — the delta of -0.20 — would be a sweet spot to me."
A live audience question surfaced a useful detail: Tiger's options chain shows a probability of profit and break-even point for each strike directly, alongside the estimated seller income — no separate calculator needed, though the desktop app carries even more granular stats.
[Placing the Order]
Once a strike is chosen, the flow is:
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Tap the sell icon on the option's price chart
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Choose order type — market or limit — and enter quantity (remember: 1 lot = 100 shares, so the displayed premium needs multiplying by 100 to get real dollar terms)
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Tap Place Sell Order
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Review the confirmation page — it flags that you're taking on assignment risk in exchange for receiving the premium upfront, and shows a P&L diagram and margin usage breakdown
[Market vs. Limit: Don't Get Caught by Wide Spreads]
For liquid, tightly-spread options, a market order fills fast and close to fair value. But for less liquid or longer-dated contracts, the bid-ask spread can be wide — Samuel showed an example where the ask was $8.30 and the bid just $6.00. Selling at market there means giving up real money to the spread.
His fix: use the mid-price or last-traded price as a limit order reference instead of market orders in these cases. "As option sellers... maybe I don't mind waiting in case the IV goes up, and then I can sell the option for higher."
He also flagged a practical setting: orders default to expire at end of day unless switched to Good-Til-Cancelled (GTC) — useful since GTC orders can sit for up to 90 days, letting you set a target price and walk away.
[Key Takeaways]
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Strike selection is a risk decision, not just a yield decision. OTM strikes with high delta-implied win rates protect against unwanted assignment.
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The 35–45 day window balances premium collected against capital tied up.
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Use limit orders on wide-spread contracts — market orders can cost you real premium on illiquid options.
[Call to Action 🎯]
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Pick one stock on your watchlist you'd be happy to own, and find its 35–45 day options chain.
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Identify the strike where delta sits around -0.20 to -0.30 — that's roughly your 70–80% win-rate zone.
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Drop a comment: what's the widest bid-ask spread you've seen on an option you were watching — and did you use a limit order to deal with it?
Markets are always moving - and sometimes, the best move is knowing what works for you.
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很多人卖 Put 的顺序刚好反过来：先看到某个合约 IV 很高、权利金很香，然后才开始说服自己“这只股票其实也不错”。这种情况下，一旦真的被指派，策略很容易从“赚时间价值”变成“被迫长期持有”。
我自己会重点看四件事：
股票本身愿不愿意持有、执行价是不是认可的买入价、35–45天的资金占用是否划算、买卖价差够不够窄。
另外我不会把 Delta=-0.20 简单理解成“80%胜率”。Delta 可以作为到期 ITM 概率的粗略参考，但它不是保证，更没有把跳空、财报、波动率变化这些风险完全算进去。
限价单这一点我也很认同。期权不像大盘股正股，流动性差的时候 Bid/Ask 可能非常宽。如果 Bid 是 6 美元、Ask 是 8.3 美元，直接用市价卖，很可能一成交就损失相当一部分理论收益。
所以卖 Put 对我来说不是：
“哪张期权权利金最高？”
而是：
“哪一个价格我愿意买股票，同时市场愿意付我足够的钱让我等待？”
一句话：
好股票决定能不能接货，好执行价决定安全边际，好的成交价格才决定这笔 Put 值不值得卖。
A simple checklist:
Choose a stock you really want to own.
Have a bullish or neutral view.
Check support levels and IV. Higher IV usually means higher premium but also higher risk.
Consider 35–45 days to balance premium and capital usage.
Choose an OTM strike around 10–15% below the current price.
A Delta around -0.20 to -0.30 can indicate roughly a 70–80% estimated probability of expiring out of the money, but it is not a guaranteed win rate.
If the bid-ask spread is wide, use a limit order instead of a market order.
Most important: Never sell a put only because the premium looks attractive. Make sure you are comfortable buying 100 shares at the strike price if assigned.