Just caught something interesting about HUM options that might be worth looking at if you're into income strategies.

So Humana's got new April options that just started trading, and there are a couple of positions that caught my attention. On the put side, there's a $180 strike with a $10.10 bid. If you're thinking about grabbing HUM shares anyway, selling that put could be a smart move. You'd be committing to buy at $180, but you pocket that premium upfront, which brings your effective cost basis down to $169.90. That's actually better than the current $181.36 price tag.

The interesting part? That $180 strike is only about 1% out of the money, which means there's roughly a 56% chance it expires worthless and you just keep the premium. If that happens, you're looking at a 5.61% return on your cash commitment, or about 41% annualized. Pretty solid for a short-term play.

On the flip side, the call side has a $185 strike going for $9.80. If you already own HUM shares at the current price, you could sell that call as a covered call. You'd be capped at $185, but combined with the premium, that's a total return of 7.41% if the stock gets called away. There's about a 50% chance it expires worthless too, meaning you keep both your shares and the $9.80 premium.

The volatility numbers are interesting here. The put's implied volatility is sitting at 54%, the call at 56%, while the actual trailing twelve month volatility for HUM is running at 51%. So you're not dealing with anything crazy volatile.

Looking at the trailing twelve month chart for Humana, the $180 strike sits pretty close to where the stock has been trading, while the $185 call represents about a 2% premium above current levels. Both are reasonable positions depending on your outlook for HUM and what your income strategy looks like.

If you want to dig deeper into options plays like this, there's a lot more contract ideas out there worth exploring. The key is understanding your risk tolerance and what your actual goal is with the position.