PutWrite Income via ETFs (Cash-Secured Puts)
US core
An equally-weighted, monthly basket of cash-secured put-write ETFs (led by WisdomTree's S&P 500 put-write fund, WTPI, formerly PUTW) — the mirror of covered calls: hold cash, sell puts, collect the premium. By put-call parity it's much like the covered-call basket, not a second edge. The premium is compensation for the market's crash risk, and a fund's yield is not its total return. No edge over the index is claimed. Derivatives-based; may count as a complex product at your broker (appropriateness test).
This strategy's universe (1) →
Worst stretch in the backtest: -16.6% — a simulated $1,000 would have dipped to ~$834 before recovering.
Backtest window: 2020-09-30 → 2026-09-30 · as of 2026-09-30 (updated quarterly)
This window does not include the COVID crash (Feb–Mar 2020) and the 2008 financial crisis.
Full methodology & limitations
Track records are simulated backtests, not live results. Methodology and current limitations: (1) Universe membership is real point-in-time index constituents - Nasdaq-100 (US) and WIG20 (PL), with dated add/drop history - so backtests see each index as it actually was, with no survivorship from later additions. Prices are adjusted close (total-return). When the backtest runs on the licensed, delisted-capable feed (EODHD), index members that later delisted or renamed are still priced and INCLUDED, closing the survivorship gap on the price side; when it runs on the keyless fallback feed, some delisted names are unpriced and dropped, which can flatter drawdowns. Smaller residuals remain: index changes after the last sourced revision are not yet reflected (Nasdaq-100 membership as pulled on 2026-06-30, WIG20 as of its September 2025 revision), and a few long-delisted tickers may still be unresolved. A name with no real quote for 14 days is treated as untradable - never picked and never held on a frozen price - and a renamed listing is held under its new code with its full history. (2) Costs are charged per market on each rebalance's turnover - 5 bps for US names, 10 bps for EU, 20 bps for Warsaw (GPW) - the conservative end of typical half-spread-plus-fees for liquid names; market impact and FX conversion are not modelled (negligible at retail size, understated for large money). (3) Prices are total-return (dividends reinvested) where the data feed supports it. (4) Sharpe and Sortino use a flat 3%/yr cash (risk-free) rate, approximately the average US T-bill yield over the backtest window; actual cash rates varied 0-5% within it and Polish rates were mostly higher, so ratios are approximate. (5) Cross-market calendar gaps are bridged by carrying the last known price forward, which can modestly understate day-to-day volatility. (6) Rebalances are simulated at the same closing price the signal is computed from (close-to-close execution); a live follower trades at the next session's prices, so simulated results may differ from what next-bar execution would have produced. Past simulated performance does not predict future results.
Hover any metric above — I'll explain what it means.
How you'd carry it out in your broker
Every model portfolio update publishes as a plain list of tickers and weights — the exact same file for every subscriber. Here's the general shape of loading that into four popular brokers; the actual tickers and weights only appear once you unlock this strategy.
This strategy has averaged 0.5 changes in the model portfolio per month, over its last publications.
XTB, Trading 212, IBKR, Revolut
XTB
- Each published ticker is searchable in the XTB app/web platform.
- XTB has no basket/pie import — each ticker's published weight is its share of the model portfolio; whether and how much to trade is your own decision.
Trading 212
- Portfolio → Pies → Create Pie.
- Each published ticker goes in with its published weight % — the Pie then tracks that allocation for you.
Interactive Brokers (IBKR)
- Once unlocked, the model portfolio downloads as a CSV.
- Classic TWS: File → Import Watchlist reads that file — each ticker's published weight is its share of the model portfolio.
Revolut
- Each published ticker is searchable in the Invest tab.
- Revolut has no basket import — each ticker's published weight is its share of the model portfolio; whether and how much to trade is your own decision.
General information about loading a published, identical-for-everyone list into a broker — not a personal recommendation. Whether and how much to trade is your own decision, in your own account; we never trade on your behalf.
Track record
Chart data (year by year)
| Year | Simulated return |
|---|---|
| 2020 (from Sep) | +8.2% |
| 2021 | +20.9% |
| 2022 | -10.1% |
| 2023 | +15.5% |
| 2024 | +17.2% |
| 2025 | +14.5% |
| 2026 | +7.4% (to 2026-09-30) |
Dashed line = Buy & hold SPY (same window and costs): CAGR 16.3%, max drawdown -24.5%.
Simulated backtest — methodology & limitations above, next to the stats.
This month's model portfolio
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How it works — in plain words
It holds a basket of 'put-write' ETFs — led by WisdomTree's S&P 500 put-write fund (WTPI, traded as PUTW until April 2025) — and re-levels them to equal weight once a month. A put-write fund is the MIRROR of a covered call: instead of owning stocks and renting out the upside, it holds cash and sells put options on the index, getting paid a premium to promise 'if the market falls to here, I'll buy it'. In calm or rising markets it just keeps pocketing premiums; in a crash the puts get 'assigned' and it takes the fall, softened by all the premium it banked. It's the second way to earn option income on the site, through a real fund with a genuine track record.
Say the index is at 100 and the fund sells a one-month put at 97 for $2. Three endings: the index drifts to 101 — nobody wants to sell at 97, the put expires worthless, the fund keeps the $2 (a clean +2 on its cash). It dips to 98 — still above 97, the fund keeps the $2 again. It craters to 90 — the put is exercised, the fund effectively buys in at 97 and eats the drop to 90, but the $2 premium cushions it to about −5 instead of −10. Notice the shape: steady small wins, then the occasional real hit when the market breaks — income now, paid for by taking the crash.
Here's the elegant part. 'Hold cash, sell a put' and 'own the stock, sell a call' have almost IDENTICAL payoffs — a 300-year-old result called put-call parity. So this put-write basket and the covered-call basket are two faces of the same trade: selling volatility for premium. That's why we call PutWrite a different PRODUCT, not a second edge — stacking both doesn't double your advantage, it just concentrates you in one bet. And the premium isn't free money: it's the fee the market pays you for agreeing to catch the falling knife in a crash. Transferable idea: when two 'different' products share a payoff, they share a risk.
Put-call parity — that a cash-secured put and a covered call have the same payoff — was understood by traders centuries ago and formalised in 1969 (Hans Stoll). It's why the two 'income' baskets on this site are cousins, not independent bets.
Live since 2026-07-21 through 2026-11-06: -0.4% (3 mo) — the result of the published portfolios, entering at the next session's close. This is not a backtest.
Update history
| As of | What changed |
|---|---|
| 2026-11-01 | Model update: no material change this month |
| 2026-10-01 | Model update: no material change this month |
| 2026-09-03 | Model update: no material change this month |
| 2026-08-03 | Model update: no material change this month |
| 2026-07-21 | Initial model portfolio published (1 position(s)) |
Grounded in published research
The peer-reviewed findings this strategy is built on:
- Ungar, J. & Moran, M. (2009). The Cash-Secured PutWrite Strategy and Performance of Related Benchmark Indexes. Journal of Alternative Investments, 11(4). (the canonical PutWrite study: index-like returns at lower volatility)
- Bondarenko, O. (2014). Why Are Put Options So Expensive? Quarterly Journal of Finance, 4(3). (the source of the premium — selling puts is paid for bearing crash/tail risk, not a free income machine)
- Israelov, R. & Nielsen, L. (2015). Covered Calls Uncovered. Financial Analysts Journal, 71(6). (via put-call parity a cash-secured put is close to a covered call — the same short-volatility exposure, so PutWrite is not a separate edge over BuyWrite)
A documented, peer-reviewed effect — cited so you can read the source yourself, not take our word for it. Implementation and results are ours (see methodology); the underlying finding is the literature's.
Understand this strategy
Plain-language explainers behind the mechanics above.
This strategy's rules and every model-portfolio update are written and run by HedgeYourOwn's founder.