To The Moon

$Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$  

$META Ran 30%+ in September. I'm Selling the $680 Put, Not Chasing the Stock

Meta was the loudest name in my feed all month, and for good reason. Muse, its personal AI assistant, launched on Sept 8 and climbed to the top of the US App Store's free charts. Connect 2026 then showed Muse running hands-free on the new Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses. The stock went from the mid-$550s in late August to a 52-week high of $779.82 last Thursday. Piper Sandler, TD Cowen and Canaccord all raised targets this week, into the $865-$950 range.

Then Friday reminded everyone that nothing goes up in a straight line. META closed at $751.66, down 3.3% on the day, and slipped another few dollars after hours.

I don't want to buy a stock that just ran more than 30% in a month. But I'd be very happy to own it lower. So instead of chasing, I'm getting paid to wait.

The trade

Sell 1 x $META $680 put, Oct 16 expiry (18 DTE)

Strike sits about 9.5% below Friday's close

Delta around 0.15

Target credit about $6.45, so breakeven is $673.55, roughly 10.4% below spot

On cash secured, that's about 0.95% in 18 days, or roughly 19% annualised

Yesterday I wrote about T-bills paying close to 4% now, and how that raises the bar for every put you sell. This one clears it with room to spare. Even after taking away the risk-free yield, I'm keeping about 15% annualised as pay for agreeing to buy META at $673.

Why $680

I pick strikes with two anchors and take the lower one: the 1 standard deviation floor for the expiry, or the nearest key moving average x 0.98. That landed me at $680. It still sits well above the 200-day SMA (about $626), which is my hard floor. I never sell puts on a name trading below its 200-day.

Why Oct 16 and not 30-45 DTE

Normally I sell 30-45 days out. Here I can't. Meta reports Q3 on Oct 28 after the close, and I don't hold short puts within 7 days of earnings. The November monthly would carry me straight through the report. Oct 16 expires 12 days before earnings, so the position is either closed or gone before Meta says a word.

Shorter tenor also means less time for the stock to wander. The trade-off is I have to manage it tighter.

One gate failed. Here's why I'm still in

My rules want IV Rank at 40 or higher. META is at 26. That's a fail, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Here's how I read it. IV Percentile is 77, meaning implied vol today is higher than on about three quarters of the days over the past year. IV is also running 1.3x historical vol, which clears my 1.2x rule. When rank looks low but percentile is high, it usually means one big spike in the past year stretched the range. The premium is still rich relative to how the stock has actually been moving.

So I'm treating this as a deliberate exception, logged as one, at one contract. It's not a new rule.

This is the only question that matters when you sell a put. At Friday's price, META trades around 25x forward earnings. At my breakeven, that drops to roughly 22x. Q2 revenue grew 28% to $60.8B, and the company guided Q3 to $61-64B.

The real risk is the spending. Capex guidance is $130-145B for 2026, and the market punished the stock hard after the July report. If Muse disappoints or the capex bill keeps rising, $680 won't hold on hope alone. That's why sizing stays small and the exits are set before the order goes in.

Exit plan

Take profit: GTC buy-to-close at $3.23 (50% of credit)

Stop: buy back at 2.5x credit (about $16.13)

One roll maximum, and never into the earnings window

If I get assigned, I own META at about $673 and start selling covered calls. That's the Wheel doing what it's built to do.

Bottom line

Chasing a parabolic chart and selling a put under it are two very different bets. One needs the rally to continue. The other just needs META to stay above $673 for 18 days, and pays me if it doesn't go my way on the first try.

Anyone else selling premium on META after this run, or waiting for a proper pullback first?

$META $QQQ $NVDA

Not financial advice. This is how I run my own book.