Covered calls on WMT

Walmart Inc. was trading at $105.78 when this page was last refreshed on September 30, 2026. 8 out-of-the-money WMT calls sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band that covered call writers work in, paying $32 to $86 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 30, 2026. They are not live quotes and are not refreshed when you load the page.

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

At-the-money implied vol sits at 22%, which is ordinary for a name this size. Nothing in the pricing is unusual, so the trade lives or dies on strike selection rather than on the vol.

Can you actually get filled

Median bid-ask spread is 13.6% of the mid, widening to 15.2% on the worst strike here. Workable, but do not send a market order. Open interest is deep, 1,329 contracts at the median strike, so getting out early is not a problem.

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 0.9% 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 12.1%, on the $110.00 strike expiring October 9. It is $32 of actual cash. It annualizes well because it is a 9-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 $112.00 strike expiring October 30. You collect $86 up front. If WMT finishes above $112.00 your 100 shares are sold there, and the 5.9% move from $105.78 up to the strike is yours as well. Everything above it is not. The model puts the odds of keeping the premium at about 75%, 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 $112.00 for these shares, that strike locks in a loss on the stock, and $86 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

Read this as a snapshot, not a suggestion. It is where the WMT chain stood on September 30, 2026, and every price in it has already changed.

Elsewhere on WMT

• Cash-secured puts on WMT
• The wheel on WMT
• Every ticker we track

Understand the strategy

• Covered calls: the complete series
• One full covered call, end to end
• Picking a strike by delta
• What the IV above is actually telling you
• Reading the delta column three ways
• What happens if one of these is assigned
• The filters that produced a table like this one
• What the keep odds column is really claiming
• A full year of these, audited against holding
• What the tax bill looks like on a year of this
• Options basics: the foundations, in full
• How to read a chain like the table above

Run your own numbers

• Covered call calculator static return, if-called return and the cushion.
• Annualized return calculator compare a 14-day trade against a 45-day one.
• Assignment probability calculator the odds behind a strike.
• Roll analyzer for when the stock runs through you.