Here is a result that surprises people: across every individual stock in our 2.8-year backtest, the top earner was not the high-flying chip name or the volatile growth story. It was Microsoft. A 100-share Microsoft position that started at about $34,788 generated $10,184 in total premium income — roughly $3,665 a year. Measured against the capital actually tied up in the position, which averaged about $47,000 as Microsoft's shares appreciated over the period, that comes to a 7.7% annualized yield.
That is the highest single-stock yield in the dataset, and it came from one of the most boring, predictable names on the board. The boring part is the whole point.
What 2.8 Years on Microsoft Produced
Over the full period, the engine placed 36 trades on Microsoft — selling a call, letting it expire or buying it back, then selling another. Of those 36 calls, just 4 ended with the shares being called away. That is an assignment rate of about 1 in 9.
Compare that to Apple, where roughly 1 in 4 calls ended in assignment. Microsoft's shares stayed put far more often, which means more of the premium was collected without ever handing over stock. A low assignment rate is part of why a stable name compounds premium so steadily: you keep selling calls on the same shares quarter after quarter, rather than getting called out and rebuilding the position.
The Counterintuitive Part: The Earnings Blackout Barely Costs Anything
The income engine refuses to sell a call in the two weeks before a company reports earnings — earnings is the one scheduled event that can gap a stock 10% overnight. On most stocks, that discipline visibly lowers the yield. On Apple it shaves off 29%. On energy-heavy portfolios it can cut more than half.
On Microsoft, it costs almost nothing. With the earnings blackout active, Microsoft yielded 7.74%. Re-run the identical backtest with the blackout switched off, and the yield rises only to 8.47% — a difference of just 9%.
Then it gets stranger. With the blackout active, the engine actually placed more trades on Microsoft — 36 versus 34 without it. Skipping the pre-earnings window didn't cost trading opportunities; it shuffled them to calmer weeks where the engine found cleaner setups. On a stock this stable, earnings-season skipping is a rounding error on the trade calendar. (For why the same call pays different premiums week to week, see why premiums change week to week.)
Why Stable Names Make the Best Engines
The reason Microsoft tops the chart is the same reason its blackout cost is so small: stable, liquid, moderate-volatility names produce premium consistently rather than in earnings-driven bursts. The market is not pricing in a violent move every quarter, so the calls outside the earnings window pay nearly as well as the ones inside it. The income comes from the steady drip of time decay on a name that does not lurch around — not from selling a coin-flip into an earnings print.
That is the lesson hiding inside the Microsoft number. If income is what you are after, the names that look the most uneventful are often the ones doing the most work. A stock with Microsoft's characteristics — high liquidity, moderate implied volatility (the market's expectation of how much the stock will move), and a contained earnings reaction — is close to an ideal profile for the covered call engine. It is not a case for buying Microsoft specifically; it is a case for understanding which traits generate reliable premium. (For the full income picture across portfolios, see the honest answer to how much you can make.)
Reading the Microsoft Number Against the Others
The 7.7% Microsoft yield reads high until you remember every figure in this series has the earnings risk already subtracted. Microsoft simply has very little earnings risk to subtract — so its disciplined number lands close to its theoretical maximum, while a volatile name's disciplined number lands far below its flashy headline. (We explain why our figures sit below the yield-chasing backtests in why our numbers are lower than everyone else's.)
In other words, Microsoft is not winning because it pays the richest premiums in any single week. It is winning because it pays solid premiums in nearly every week, and almost none of that income is lost to the earnings blackout.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much can you make selling covered calls on MSFT?
Over 2.8 years of historical option data, a 100-share Microsoft position that started at about $34,788 generated $10,184 in total premium — roughly $3,665 a year. That works out to a 7.7% annualized yield, measured against the average capital tied up as the shares appreciated, and it was the highest yield of any single stock in the backtest.
How often do your shares get called away on MSFT?
About 1 in 9. Across 36 trades, only 4 ended with the shares assigned at the strike — a much lower rate than Apple's 1 in 4. Microsoft's shares stayed put most of the time, letting the same position keep generating premium quarter after quarter.
Why does the earnings blackout barely affect MSFT?
Because Microsoft is stable and liquid, its premiums outside the earnings window are nearly as rich as the ones inside it. Skipping the two weeks before earnings cut the yield by only 9% — and the engine actually placed more trades with the blackout on (36 versus 34), shifting them to calmer weeks rather than losing them.
Why did Microsoft out-earn more volatile stocks?
Steady premium beats bursty premium over a long horizon. A stable name pays solid time-decay income in nearly every week, and loses almost none of it to the earnings blackout. Volatile names pay big in occasional weeks but surrender far more yield to earnings protection — and to getting assigned on the moves the protection exists to avoid.
The takeaway isn't "buy Microsoft." It's that the traits making a stock dull to own — stability, liquidity, contained earnings — are the exact traits that make it a quietly excellent covered call engine.
Methodology
These results come from running the Income Factory recommendation engine against 2.8 years of historical option chain data (ORATS, 2023–2025) with all defensive features active: earnings blackouts (14 days before earnings), buy-to-close orders at a 50% profit target, a 21-day minimum days-to-expiration (DTE) floor, and per-stock rebuy thresholds (10%/12%/15% for stable, moderate, and volatile names). Strategy: Moderate, a 0.25 delta target. The "without blackout" figure comes from re-running the identical engine with only the earnings blackout disabled. Results are backtested and simulated — not actual trading. Past performance does not guarantee future results.