PLTR calendar call spread: selling time twice

$123.06Palantir Technologies Inc. Class A Common Stock · chain snapshot captured Aug 1, 2026

The retail wheel favorite: a mid-priced stock with high IV, weekly expirations, and enough open interest that cash-secured puts fill near mid. High IV is not free money here — the drawdowns are as big as the premium implies.

A calendar sells the Aug 28 $125 call and buys the same strike Sep 18 — $186 debit on PLTR at $123.06. You are not betting on direction; you are betting that the 27-day option decays faster than the 48-day one you own, which it does, as long as PLTR stays near $125.

The trade, priced from the chain

27d to August 28, 2026

Leg	Qty	Price	Δ	IV	Cash
SellAug 28 $125 call	1	$8.65	0.51	71%	+$865
BuySep 18 $125 call	1	$10.51	0.52	63%	−$1,051

Net debit

$186

Max profit

$582

Max loss

$186

Chance of profit

56%

Breakevens

$109.27 / $146.05

−11.2% / +18.7%

$96.4 – $158.92 price rangespot $123.06breakeven $109.27 · $146.05P/L at near expiry

Open this calendar call spread in the builderLoads these exact legs and re-quotes them live. No account needed.

Every leg above is priced at the chain’s own quote — the identical number the builder will show you when you click through (last traded price), captured August 1, 2026 with a 15-minute delay. Only strikes whose print survives an implied-volatility check (within 20% of its own IV) and a no-arbitrage check across the ladder are priced here. Full methodology. Greeks, breakevens, max profit/loss and probability of profit are computed by OptionTracker’s engine at r = 4.2%. Educational analysis, not investment advice.

How a calendar call spread works

Same strike, two expiries. The short Aug 28 call decays on a steep curve; the long Sep 18 call decays on a shallow one. The difference between those two decay rates is the entire profit engine — which is why the position wants the stock to sit still.

Max profit occurs with PLTR pinned at $125 on August 28, 2026: the short call expires worthless and you still own a 21-days-longer call. The engine values that peak at $582 against the $186 debit, which is also the maximum loss.

Calendars are LONG vega, unlike most short-premium trades. The back month has more vega than the front, so rising implied vol helps you. At 70% ATM on the front expiry, PLTR is the 4th richest of the 20 underlyings on this site — calendars are best opened when front-month vol is rich relative to the back.

Because the legs expire on different dates, there is no single expiry payoff: the numbers on this page are marked to model at the near expiry (August 28, 2026) using each leg's own implied vol — the same convention the builder uses.

When it makes sense

Front-month IV is elevated relative to the back month (a flat or inverted term structure). You are selling the expensive expiry and buying the cheap one.
You want a defined-risk long-vega position. Max loss is the $186 debit.
You want to own the back-month call eventually and would rather be paid to wait for it.
The catalyst is far enough out that theta has not started compounding against you, and near enough that you are not funding two months of silence.

Where the risk actually is

Early assignment on the short call — particularly near an ex-dividend date — leaves you short 100 shares against a long back-month call. Manageable, but it turns a quiet position into a margin conversation.

Vol term structure can move against you: if back-month IV falls while front-month holds, the position loses on vega even with the stock exactly where you wanted it.

Pinning is not exotic. The most likely single close for a quiet underlying is near the strike you bought, and that is where a long-vol structure loses the most.

What is different about doing this on PLTR

Owning vol on a 50-vol name is expensive by construction, and Palantir's realized has been high enough often enough to make it defensible. The strangle is the better instrument than the straddle here — the distribution is wide enough that the cheaper wings still get reached.

PLTR's Aug 28 strikes are $1 apart near the money (0.81% of spot). That is workable, but it means a one-rung move in a strike is a real change in the trade, not a tweak. 30k contracts of open interest on Aug 28 is workable around the money and thin in the wings — width costs more here than the ladder suggests. 49 strikes on that expiry — 50% of the board — carry prints that agree with their own implied volatility and hold up across the ladder, and those are the strikes priced here. Retail-deep with a fine strike ladder and real weekly open interest; one of the few high-vol names where four legs fill cleanly.

Skew is inverted: the 25-delta CALL implies 2.5% more vol than the put. That is the market pricing upside risk above downside risk — a squeeze, a takeover rumour, or a crowded short. Owning upside on an inverted skew means paying the expensive side of the surface, which is worth knowing before you buy the call. The term structure is backwardated — Aug 28 implies 8.3% MORE vol than Sep 18. That is the signature of a dated event inside the front month, and it is the strongest argument for picking the expiry that sits behind it.

At 70% ATM implied vol, the Aug 28 options are pricing a one-standard-deviation move of $23.41 over 27 days — roughly −19.0% to +19.0%, or $99.65 to $146.47. Owning vol here means believing PLTR covers more than 19.0% in 27 days, and covering it in time.

What actually goes wrong here, as opposed to in general: Running the wheel on a position size that assumes assignment is unlikely. On this name assignment is the plan, and the drawdown after it is the part people are unprepared for.

Picking the strike on PLTR

The strike is your forecast for where PLTR sits on August 28, 2026, and the expiry gap sets how much time you're buying:

Band	What it means	When it fits
ATM strike	Maximum time-decay differential	The neutral construction, quoted above at $125.
OTM call strike	A directional lean upward	Cheaper, profits if the stock drifts toward the strike by the near expiry.
Narrow expiry gap	Front and back close together	Smaller debit, smaller edge. Decay differential needs room to work.
Wide expiry gap	27d vs 48d here	More vega, more debit, more exposure to term-structure moves.

The chain below shows the Aug 28 calls. Compare the ATM IV there with the back month: if the front is not richer, the calendar's core edge is missing.

From the far strike to the near one, the premium below moves by a factor of 1.5. Where you sit on that curve is the trade. Open interest concentrates at $129 on this expiry, which is usually where the fills are cleanest.

PLTR 2026-08-28 calls around the money: strike, distance from spot, mid price, delta, implied volatility and open interest.
Strike	vs spot	Mid	Δ	IV	% of spot	Ann.	OI
$121	−1.7%	$10.50	0.57	71%	8.5%	115%	114
$122	−0.9%	$10.05	0.56	71%	8.2%	110%	158
$123	−0.0%	$9.54	0.54	71%	7.8%	105%	121
$124	+0.8%	$9.10	0.52	71%	7.4%	100%	111
$125used	+1.6%	$8.65	0.51	71%	7.0%	95%	205
$126	+2.4%	$7.80	0.49	70%	6.3%	86%	124
$127	+3.2%	$7.60	0.47	70%	6.2%	83%	28
$128	+4.0%	$7.55	0.46	70%	6.1%	83%	97
$129	+4.8%	$7.00	0.44	70%	5.7%	77%	359

PLTR calls expiring August 28, 2026· 15-min delayed capture · “Ann.” annualizes the mid as a percentage of spot over 27 days.

Managing the position

Roll the short call out for a credit when it expires worthless — that converts the position into a diagonal and reduces basis on the long call.
Watch the short leg through ex-dividend dates and the last week — assignment there is the most common way a calendar breaks.
Never plan to hold an ATM long-vol position through the last week. Theta on the final stretch is the steepest part of the curve and it does not care about your thesis.
If you close one leg, say out loud what the remaining position is. A straddle minus its put is a long call, with completely different risk from the trade you sized.

Common mistakes

Treating it as a short-vol trade

Calendars are long vega. A vol crush after earnings hurts the back month more than it helps the front — the opposite of what most people expect from a "premium selling" structure.

Forgetting the legs expire separately

On August 28, 2026 you still own a Sep 18 call. That is a position, and it needs a plan of its own.

Buying vol without a view on vol

Owning a straddle because the chart looks coiled is a directional trade with worse odds. The question is whether implied is cheap relative to what the stock will realize, and that needs a number.

PLTR calendar call spread FAQ

What is the max loss?

The $186 debit. It is realized when PLTR moves far enough in either direction that both calls converge in value at the near expiry.

Why does this page show a modelled payoff instead of an expiry payoff?

Because the legs expire on different dates — August 28, 2026 and the Sep 18 expiry. The engine marks the position to model at the near expiry using each leg's own implied vol, which is the only honest way to draw a calendar's P/L.

How much is PLTR expected to move by Aug 28?

The Aug 28 options imply a one-standard-deviation move of $23.41 — about 19.0% of the PLTR share price — over the 27 days to expiry. That is the market's estimate, not a forecast: roughly a third of the time the actual move is larger.

Is PLTR option skew favouring puts or calls?

Calls. The 25-delta call implies 2.5% more volatility than the 25-delta put on the Aug 28 chain — an inverted skew, usually a sign of squeeze or event risk to the upside.

Build it yourself

Everything above is one construction at one moment. Open it in the builder to drag strikes along the ladder, scrub the expiry, and watch max profit, breakevens and probability of profit recompute live against the real PLTR chain — free, no account.

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