I can run a 3-year AAPL short-OTM-options backtest, but I need a few choices confirmed first because the “optimal” delta/DTE depends heavily on strategy constraints and objective.

I’ll treat your delegation as confirmation to choose the strike/expiry rules programmatically. I’ll run a historical grid search over reasonable short-OTM AAPL option-selling strategies using real historical option data, then rank by highest return and also show risk metrics so we don’t accidentally select a strategy that only wins by taking extreme tail risk.

The main grid finished, but the table display was truncated. I’ll pull a compact view of the already-computed results so the final recommendation is precise.

The output formatter still hid some columns, so I’ll extract only the winning rows as plain dictionaries with the key metrics needed for the recommendation.

I ran the 3-year AAPL short-OTM option-selling grid from 2023-05-30 through 2026-05-28 using real historical option quotes.

Best parameter set for highest return

Highest-return strategy found:

My recommendation

If you are optimizing strictly for highest historical return, the best rule was:

Sell AAPL ~0.05-delta OTM puts around 60 DTE, then buy back when the option has lost 75% of its entry premium.

However, this result comes with large tail risk. The best-return strategy had a simulated ~69.5% drawdown sequence, which is very high. It made money historically because the premium collected was large relative to the modeled collateral, but this is not a “safe income” strategy.

Better risk-adjusted alternative

The best Sharpe / return-to-drawdown strategy was:

But this had much lower absolute return. Also, naked short calls have theoretically unlimited risk, so I would not use this unless it is covered by long AAPL shares or converted into a defined-risk call spread.

Practical takeaway

For highest return, use:

AAPL short put selling

• Entry: weekly
• Option: OTM put
• Target delta: 0.05
• Target DTE: ~60 days
• Exit: close at 75% profit
• Avoid holding through major downside shocks if risk controls are added later.

For safer live implementation, I would modify it into either:

1. Cash-secured puts, or
2. Defined-risk put credit spreads, because the naked/cash-secured version can suffer very large drawdowns.

I would not place this live automatically without adding position sizing and max-loss rules.