Just noticed NLY options opened up for August 15th expiration - 93 days out, which means decent time value if you're into selling premium. Checked the chain and there are a couple plays worth looking at.

On the put side, the $19.00 strike is trading at 24 cents bid. If you sell-to-open, you're basically saying you'll buy the stock at $19.00 but you pocket that premium upfront, bringing your actual cost down to $18.76. Current price is sitting around $19.53, so you're getting a roughly 3% discount to today's level. Analytics suggest about 55% chance this expires worthless, which would give you a 1.26% return on cash (or 4.96% annualized). Not bad if the stock holds.

For the call side, the $20.00 strike has an 8 cent bid. If you're already holding NLY at $19.53 and sell this as a covered call, you're locking in a 2.82% total return if it gets called away at expiration. The odds of it expiring worthless are around 54%, in which case you keep your shares and the premium. Implied vol on the put is running 41%, calls at 44%, while the actual trailing 12-month vol is just 22% - so there's some premium sitting there.

Worth digging into the company fundamentals and looking at that 12-month chart before committing though. Lots of moving parts with these mortgage REITs.