SharkWater Trading • Income Strategies • Options • Space
Turning the Wheel on ASTS: How I'm Getting Paid While a $134 Rocket Drifts Sideways at $56
Six weeks ago, AST SpaceMobile was a $134 stock and every timeline on the internet was screaming to the moon. Today it's drifting in the mid-$50s, chopping between roughly $55 and $60 like a boat with no wind in its sails.
For the buy-and-hold crowd, that's purgatory. You bought the story, the story got cut in half, and now it just… floats.
For a premium seller, it's payday. Because a stock that can't decide which way to go is a stock whose options are stuffed with rich implied volatility — and rich IV is chum in the water. When the tape won't hand you a trend, you stop betting on direction and start charging rent on the chop.
Here's how I'm turning the wheel on ASTS.
Why the Rocket Is Drifting
To sell premium on a name, you first have to understand why it's stuck. ASTS is caught in a genuine tug-of-war:
Pulling up: The BlueBird Block 2 birds launched in June — the largest commercial comms arrays ever put in low Earth orbit. Piper Sandler named it their preferred space stock and slapped an Overweight on it. The bull case (direct-to-phone, from space, no tower) is still very much alive.
Pulling down: A billion-dollar convertible note raise dropped a dilution anvil on the chart. Revenue is real but still a rounding error against a ~$22B market cap. And there's a Q2 earnings date circled in early August that nobody wants to be offside on.
Bulls and bears pulling equally hard is the definition of lateral. And lateral, high-IV chop is the exact ocean the wheel was built to sail.
The Wheel, Plainly
The wheel is three moves that feed each other:
- Sell cash-secured puts below the stock to get paid for agreeing to buy shares cheaper.
- If assigned, take the shares at a net cost below today's price.
- Sell weekly covered calls against those shares to get paid again while you hold.
Then it repeats. You are, quite literally, getting paid at every point on the compass.
Step 1 — Ladder the puts, don't stack them on one strike
I don't sell one fat put and pray. I spread a ladder across several strikes below the current price, so I'm not all-in at any single level. Something like (illustrative — pull the live chain for real numbers):
| Sell-to-open put | Cushion below spot | Why |
|---|---|---|
| $52.5 | ~7% | Closest to the money — richest premium, highest assignment odds |
| $50.0 | ~11% | The psychological round number, strong support zone |
| $47.5 | ~15% | Deeper cushion, lighter premium, "I'd genuinely love it here" |
Each rung throws off weekly or bi-weekly premium. If ASTS keeps drifting sideways above them, every one of those puts bleeds to zero and I keep 100% of the credit as income. The ladder means a dip might assign me the top rung while the lower rungs keep printing — I get paid and I get my shares at a discount.
Step 2 — Get assigned, and mean it
Here's the rule that separates wheel traders from wheel victims: only sell a put at a strike where you'd be genuinely happy to own the stock. Assignment isn't the accident — it's a designed outcome. When ASTS taps $52.5 and puts those shares in my account, I'm not panicking. I wanted them at $52.5 minus the premium I already pocketed. My real cost basis is lower than the strike.
Step 3 — Sell weekly covered calls on the assigned shares
Now I own shares, and idle shares are a lazy crew. So I put them to work selling weekly covered calls above my cost basis — say the $60 or $62.5 line. High IV means even a one-week, out-of-the-money call pays real money. Three outcomes, all of them fine:
- Stock stays flat → call expires, I keep the premium, I sell another next Friday.
- Stock drops → the call cushions the loss, and I keep wheeling.
- Stock rips through my strike → my shares get called away for a gain plus all the premium, and I start the whole wheel over selling puts again.
That's the machine. Puts pay me to wait. Assignment hands me shares cheap. Calls pay me to hold. The wheel turns as long as the water stays choppy — and choppy is exactly what ASTS is serving.
The Sharks Circling This Particular Wheel
Now the part most "passive income" posts conveniently skip. ASTS is not a sleepy dividend stock you can wheel on autopilot. This is a high-voltage name, and the wheel has real teeth pointed back at you:
The earnings landmine. There's a Q2 report due in early August. Selling puts or calls across an earnings date on a stock this volatile is picking up coins in front of a freight train — one gap can blow through every rung of your ladder at once. I either close the wheel before the print or size it knowing the whole thing is a binary bet. No pretending otherwise.
It can be a falling knife. This stock has already put down 36% in nine days on the tape this year. The wheel is beautiful in a range and brutal in a sustained downtrend — you get assigned on the way down, then your covered calls are stranded underwater while the shares keep sinking. The strategy assumes the chop holds. If the bottom falls out, you're a long-term bag-holder collecting nickels against a boulder.
Your calls cap the moonshot. ASTS ran to $134 once. If the next catalyst reignites that move, my $60 covered calls hand the upside to someone else. Selling premium on a rocket means agreeing, in advance, to get off before orbit.
High IV is high for a reason. The fat premiums aren't free money — they're the market pricing in exactly the gap risk above. You're being paid well because the danger is real. Respect the quote.
Rules of the Deck
- Only wheel a name you'd hold through a drawdown. If you don't believe in the ASTS story long-term, you have no business getting assigned its shares.
- Size it small. This is a speculative, cash-burning story stock — wheel a slice, never the whole account.
- Mind the calendar. Earnings and big launches change the whole risk picture. Trade around them deliberately, not by accident.
- Take the premium and stay humble. The wheel is a rent-collection business, not a lottery ticket. Consistency beats hero trades.
The Takeaway
You don't need ASTS to go up to make money on ASTS. You need it to keep doing what it's doing right now — drifting, chopping, going nowhere in particular while its options stay fat with fear. Sell the puts, take the shares on the dips, sell the calls on the shares, and let the wheel turn.
Just keep one eye on the August print. That's the wave that can flip the whole boat.
Watch the water. 🐚
SharkWater Trading is educational content, not financial advice. Options carry substantial risk of loss and are not suitable for every investor. ASTS is a highly volatile, speculative security capable of large, sudden moves; the strategies described can result in assignment, capped gains, and losses exceeding the premium collected. Strike and premium figures are illustrative — always pull the live option chain. Do your own diligence and size for the storm, not the calm.
