Machina Capitalis is my personal money machine.

Its purpose is to generate borderless income for me via: systematic options selling and, on occasion, high-conviction special situation speculations like the one I’m about to walk you through. Nothing here is financial advice.

These are my own positions, my own thinking, and my own risk which I document with members in real time. My skin is in the game.

Caveat lector!

Performance

A brief update: Machina Capitalis is sitting at just under +45% total return on initial capital since inception (Jan 2026). I’m reasonably pleased. The goal is to deploy capital carefully and systematically where the expected value is genuinely compelling. This trade fits that brief.

Trade Setup: Burford Capital?

Let me be direct about something upfront: I don’t like this industry. Litigation finance is a business model I find distasteful.

That said, whether I like it or not, the business exists and it will continue to exist. Right now, IMHO the market is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and as a result the stock is trading at less than half its estimated book value. In these scenarios: betting on a reversion to book value and/or normalising market multiples, I’d rather own the options than the equity. I can collect the upside without having to be a long-term owner of something I find philosophically unappealing and it’s also much more capital efficient. That’s one of the genuine advantages of derivatives.

So what happened, and why does it matter?

The YPF Saga - Overreaction.

Burford had ashare of a ~$16 billion arbitration award against YPF, the Argentine state oil company (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales), in a case stemming from Argentina’s expropriation of the company. They won. Then they lost on appeal. Now they’re seeking a further hearing.

My view on the appeal: the probability of a meaningful recovery is low. Argentina defaulting on its obligations is practically a national sport at this point (I say that with affection as a ‘new Argie’). However, Burford is not going to extract $16 billion from a sovereign nation that has no real incentive to pay, where neither the US government nor any private entity is going to put geopolitical pressure on Buenos Aires over a litigation claim.

So I’ve written the YPF case to zero. That frees up my mental energy to ask a much more interesting question: what is this company worth without the case?

The Underlying Business

Strip out the YPF noise and you have a business case:

• Book value of ~$5.2 billion, modeled internally by Burford without the YPF award

• Low correlation to markets; litigation outcomes don’t care about the S&P or Fed rate decisions

• Lumpy but high-quality cash flows. Suits resolve on their own timeline, not quarterly earnings cycles

• Historically valued at 1.5x–2.5x book suggesting intrinsic business quality that the market has recognized before

At the time of writing, the stock is hovering around $4.50, giving a market cap of roughly $1 billion against that $5.2 billion book. I’d be buying the business at less than 20 cents on the dollar of stated asset value and that’s after writing the big case to zero.

My base case is a reversion to 1x price-to-book within two years and implies a target of $11–$12 ex growth assumptions. A bull case, where the market awards a more typical 1.5x–2x multiple and book value compounds modestly in the interim, takes the price toward $18–$20.

On the equity alone, that’s a 3-bagger at base and a 5-bagger or more at bull. But I don’t want the equity. I want the options.

Because the logic is; If the thesis is right, why not maximise upside with minimal capital?

The Options Structure: January 2028 LEAPS: Bull Call Spreads

Because this is a binary-ish situation with a multi-year timeline, I’m using January 2028 LEAPS giving me approximately 21 months of runway. In my experience, special situations and re-ratings always take longer than you expect. Time is the engine. Theta is the enemy. So I look further into the future when express a long-side speculation while the inverse is true when selling options (on the short side).

The structure is a bull call spread: buy a call at one strike, sell a call further out of the money. This does two things; it reduces my net premium paid (by capturing the premium on the short call) and it caps my upside at the short strike, which I’m fine with because I’ve set my strikes at levels consistent with my base and bull case targets.

I’m running four different spreads across the options chain: a high-probability, lower-payout spread (breakeven just above current price) to more aggressive spreads targeting $12.50-20. Each is sized differently. This chain is fairly illiquid and I’m using the mid-price between bid-ask, putting buy orders in on the long leg first. I plan to sell the OTM calls (the short leg) as the underlying stock price rises (assuming it does) which effectively means I have even higher potential pay offs than stated with less capital in the trade.

Position Sizing: Kelly and Half-Kelly

I’m running a separate sub-book purely for these special situation speculations. For position sizing, I use the Kelly Criterion, or more conservatively, half-Kelly to optimally size each bet based on probability of success and payout ratio. This keeps me from over-concentrating in any position and ensures that even if I’m wrong on the direction, the losses are survivable.

Total capital at risk across all four spreads: ~$17,000 — assuming all my orders get hit. As of today some have, not all.

Expected Value Summary

Running the numbers across bear, base, and bull cases:

Aggregating probability-weighted payoffs across scenarios, the expected value on capital deployed is approximately 5x and that is using an estimated 23% probability of a complete loss, that is, the stock price goes nowhere or down over the next 645 days - which seems an overestimation to me, but I won’t argue with the computer.

It needs to be understood that the EV is not a guarantee — it’s a mathematical output of probability estimates, which are of course subjective. But it gives you a sense of why the thinking behind the trade.

Base case outcome on total book: ~100% return on the full $100k using less than a fifth of it.

The short-term price action will likely be driven by headlines, and there are a few worth monitoring:

• YPF appeal developments — I assign near-zero probability to a recovery, but the headlines will move the stock either way

• Quarterly earnings (MAY) and book value growth — any evidence the core portfolio is compounding is a positive catalyst

• Broader risk-off rotation — if markets become volatile and investors seek uncorrelated alpha, a business with no macro sensitivity starts to look quite attractive

• There remains the risk of an improbable string of case losses

• Accounting opacity; Internal models are done by BUR. How trustworthy are a bunch of lawyers?

The Bottom Line

A ~$1 billion market cap company sitting on $5.2 billion in estimated book value, with a core litigation finance business that has historically earned 1.5x–2.5x book multiples, in a post-event selloff driven by a binary case I’ve already written to zero.

I don’t want to own the equity. But I’m very happy to own leveraged control over the stock via the options.

Become A Member - Special Offer

If this is the kind of thinking you want access to: special situations, options structures, income plays, and the full position-level transparency, Machina Capitalis is where it’s shared. My birthday is April 21, so I'm running 20% off special offer to celebrate. Use the code below for 20% off your membership forever.

https://www.machinacapitalis.com/23f1c11f

All the best,

Benjamin.

Position initiated: 16 April 2026.

The content published in Machina Capitalis is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing contained herein constitutes financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. All positions and trades discussed reflect the author's personal portfolio and opinions at the time of writing. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Options trading involves significant risk of loss, including the potential loss of the entire amount invested. You should always conduct your own independent research and consult a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision. The author may hold positions in any securities mentioned at the time of publication.

Quick check-in on the portfolio as of today. Up 39% year to date, the lion’s share of that still coming from the short positions. I want to cover three things in this update:

• The macro backdrop and why I remain short the NASDAQ,

• The vol-harvesting strategy and how it’s tracking,

• A new speculation I’m putting on which I think has a credible 24X return profile by January 2028.

Let’s get into it.

Macro Backdrop: Why I’m Short the NASDAQ

The world is precarious right now. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement.

The QQQ closed at around $585. Structurally, the 200-day moving average remains in an uptrend over the past five years — but zoom in and the picture gets more interesting. The 50-day has already crossed below the 100-day and is heading toward the 200-day. If that completes, you’ve got a death cross and the algo-driven trading systems that monitor these signals will respond with mechanical selling. It has nothing to do with valuation; it’s purely technical. But valuation matters too, and the two are starting to converge.

The fundamental case for a NASDAQ derate is straightforward:

Tech has historically thrived in an environment of low interest rates, low inflation, and cheap energy. That tailwind is increasingly in question. More importantly, the narrative that these are capital-light businesses has quietly died. The hyper-scalers are now spending hundreds of billions per year on data centre capex. They have cash flows but they’re consuming those cash flows in maintenance and growth capex. The market has been pricing them like perpetual compounding machines. That premium, in my view, is at risk.

So I am short the NASDAQ and S&P 500 via conservative instruments — structured so that a 7.5% drop gets me to breakeven and an 8.4% drop maxes out the profit. The payoff profile from there is 2–4X on the capital deployed. With 290 days for that move to play out, I think the odds are attractive.

Premium members are aware of this trade + an identical one on the SPY.

Vol Harvesting: How The Shorts Are Tracking

This is the engine of the portfolio right now, and it continues to perform.

The core idea: Certain publicly traded vehicles are arithmetically guaranteed to decay over time due to volatility drag. The longer the timeframe, the more brutal the decay. If you pull up a 5-year chart on almost any of these instruments, you’ll find most have lost 99–100% of their starting value. I’m harvesting that decay by maintaining short positions.

Current P&L from this strategy: $4,168 in unrealised profit for the year, against a liability of $35,111, or 12% return on capital for the quarter and only $640 in borrowing fees. Borrowing fees are just 1.82% of capital deployed for the quarter — an exceptionally low cost of carry for this type of trade.

One note of caution I’d offer anyone considering this approach: bond ETFs can occasionally resist the decay dynamic even over multi-year periods. I don’t touch them for this reason.

New Speculation: A Potential 24X by January 2028?!

The following section includes the full trade structure, position sizing, and the 24X return thesis and is for premium members only. Paid subscribers also have access to the full Machina Capitalis trade log, updated positions, and the live portfolio dashboard.

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"Too many investors look at the present. The present is already in the price. You have to think out of the box and visualize 18–24 months from now, what the world is going to be and what securities might trade at. If you can see something in two years that's entirely different from the conventional wisdom, that's how you make money."

Stanley Druckenmiller

Performance Update

A volatile week, particularly across the gold complex. Since inception at the start of this year, the portfolio is sitting at a total return of approximately +38% on initial capital. That’s down from the peak of roughly +70% a fortnight ago, which reflects the leverage volatility inherent in the positions rather than any fundamental deterioration.

Oil positions continue to perform well, and the broader portfolio is in good shape. The volatility is concentrated in the gold positions — which is to be expected given the leverage applied. The key distinction: this is mark-to-market noise, not capital loss.

Is the Gold Bull Market Still Intact?

Short answer: yes.

Despite the steep drop seen over the past week, the technical structure remains firmly bullish. Looking at the 50, 100 and 200-day moving averages on gold, three major pullbacks have occurred over the past year and none of them have meaningfully challenged the 200-day moving average.

Around the $4,400 level, support came in decisively. Selling volume spiked, including a $25.67 billion 24-hour volume day in January and $21.5 billion on the 23rd of March and buyers absorbed those flows entirely. That is a strong market.

Price Targets:

I’ve left all profits from five years of gold savings in the position — that’s a free ride at this point. Initial capital has been pulled out and is being redeployed into leveraged vehicles: royalty companies and structured options spreads.

NASDAQ: A Technical and Macro Wreck

The NASDAQ (using QQQ as a proxy) has broken below its 200-day moving average and the move is not looking like a false breakdown. The 50-day moving average is now encroaching on the 100-day from above. If it crosses to the downside which is known as the death cross, algorithmic selling pressure will compound the move materially.

On the macro side: disruptions to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, if sustained for another one to two weeks, will put the entire economy under pressure. Financials and tech i.e., the NASDAQ are the most exposed. Bond yields are likely to rise. Even gold miners could see near-term revenue impact if production is curtailed.

One silver lining in that scenario: exchanges may be misconstrued as financials and sold off indiscriminately. That would be a gift and an opportunity to add aggressively to the current holdings in the Croupier collection.

Gold Royalties vs. Gold: The Valuation Gap

There’s an interesting and under-appreciated dynamic playing out in royalty companies relative to gold itself. Looking at Groy (Gold Royalty Corp.) as a case study: since its IPO at ~$5, the stock dropped to $3 on post-IPO escrow selling, then to a low of $1.40–$1.50. Since end of 2023, the dollar price is up ~60% — impressive. But measured in gold terms, it’s actually down ~30%.

This is the opportunity. If you believe gold will substantially outperform fiat currency over the coming years (which I do), then royalty companies that have de-rated in gold terms represent a leveraged way to express that view without the operational risks of mining companies.

Masterclass: The In-the-Money Covered Call

Most covered call strategies sell options above the current spot price to generate a discount on entry while capping upside. This week I want to walk through a variation that’s less commonly discussed: the in-the-money (ITM) covered call — where the strike is below the current price. The logic is different and so is the risk profile.

The goal here isn’t maximum upside participation. It’s about locking in a profit spread that’s embedded from day 1 with meaningful downside protection in the event of non-assignment.

Here’s the first tranche of my planned trade I put on two days ago using Gold Royalty (GROY):

By selling the $3.00 call while the stock sits at $3.24, I receive $0.70 in premium. This takes my true cost basis down to $2.54. G-Roy last traded at $2.54 around July 2025 when the gold price was significantly lower than today. I'm effectively paying a July-2025 price for an asset in a considerably more bullish gold environment.

Two outcomes:

Scenario A — GROY above $3.00 at expiry: Option exercised, I sell at $3.00. Locked profit: $2.54 → $3.00, returning 18.1% / 22.4% annualised.

Scenario B — GROY below $3.00: Option expires worthless. I keep the premium and hold shares at an effective cost of $2.54. I’m happy to own more G-Roy at that level, especially relative to a gold price multiples above where it was when the stock last traded there. I can then write another call and collect rent again.

This targets 22.4% annualised on a royalty company with leveraged exposure to an asset I’m structurally bullish on.

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This is where the free portion of the weekly update ends. Premium members get the full trade breakdown on all five positions below, including the Gold options targeting 5x the performance of the metal itself with zero operational risk, the NASDAQ bearish option (targeting ~376% return by year-end), + options on LandBridge and NEXT.

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There is a tension at the heart of holding gold.

It’s been considered true money for millennia:

No counterparty. No credit risk. No dependence on a system that may or may not honour its obligations.

But it does not pay you. (nor is it supposed to, given that ist is money not credit).

This is usually presented as a trade-off; the price of monetary purity. Fiat yields because you are lending it into a system. Gold does not yield because it sits outside one. The two properties are bundled together, and conventional thought juxtaposes the two ideas as mutually exclusive.

I am not certain that is entirely right and with a little lateral thinking, there does exist a way to earn a yield on one’s yellow rock that doesn’t require any relinquishing of control or risk of assignment whatsoever. It was my most successful trade last year, allowing me to earn a cash yield of ~1.5% per annum, received monthly, and at the same time allowed me to fully participate in 100% of the upside run in gold over 2025.

It’s analogous to owning a house on which you receive monthly rent and yet on top of that you also benefit from the capital appreciation. Yet despite the effectiveness of this tactic and the potentially life-changing effects it can bring, I am the only person (to my knowledge) publishing about it.

The disinterest is astounding.

Today the tactic is explored again and for premium members, you’ll discover how I’m using it to generate an expected 15% annualised ‘rent’ on some spare gold holdings without ever being at risk of losing my physical bullion.

The Position

I start with a certain amount of physical gold exposure.

Given I hold bullion, which itself remains untouched; vaulted, unencumbered, and free of counterparty risk.

In search of cash yield and an uncorrelated source of returns, one that will pay off if gold stays flat-down I ask myself the following:

How many option spreads could be sold such that, even in the worst-case scenario — where every spread reaches maximum loss — the combined position remains net positive?

From there, I can logically deduce a the correct entry points and number of credit spreads to sell to create a win-win scenario.

In theory, it translates to approximately:

~1 spread per ~25–30 shares of equivalent exposure, depending on premium and strike selection.

Today I’m showing premium members the exact details, however it is that ratio, not the nominal dollar value, that’s the key. Everything else scales from it.

The Overlay

GLD is simply gold in trust form — a liquid wrapper around the underlying metal, subject only to a modest management fee.

Because it trades publicly, it supports an options market. And because gold attracts persistent speculative interest, that market tends to price implied volatility at a premium to realised volatility.

In other words:

The market routinely overpays for uncertainty.

That is the source of return.

The structure is straightforward:

1. Sell out-of-the-money call spreads against the underlying exposure

2. Size them such that maximum loss is covered by the gain in the physical at the long strike.

This transforms a directional bet, into a cash flowing asset.

The Trade Setup

• Spread: 475 / 485 bear call spread

• Contract size: 100 shares (standard US options)

• Credit: $1.39 or $139 per spread

• Width: $10

• Max loss per spread:

(10−1.39) × 100 = $861

Max loss = $861 per contract

You may notice the expected value (EV) of the trade is negative. So if you blindly copy this you can expect to lose money. The genius is in combining the physical anchor and a roll management secret that flips the EV immensely positive.

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Will oil weaken?
Will tech crash?
Will volatility spike? etc.

In my one-man-insurance Co. my , I run my operations differently.

W…

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He’s not a large man. He’s not particularly strong. But he’s just made an extremely bold claim that stops people mid-conversation: give him a lever long enough and a fulcrum to place it on, and he could move the Earth itself.

Not with more muscle. Not with more effort. With better structure.

The fine folk of Siracusa no doubt laughed. Engineers rarely get the last laugh in their own lifetime, but the principle he was describing has quietly underpinned every meaningful advance in mechanics, architecture, and even capital markets, ever since.

Leverage isn’t about force. It’s about physics. It’s about arranging things so that modest input produces outsized output — not by taking on more risk, not by borrowing against tomorrow, but by finding the fulcrum that changes what’s possible with what you already have.

That’s the idea I want to introduce today. And I want to introduce it through a strategy that most investors never encounter — not because it’s obscure or complicated, but because it sits quietly in the options world, while most people are busy staring at price charts and macro forecasts.

It’s called the Poor Man’s Covered Call (PMCC)

The name is unfortunate. The returns are not.

First, The Machine It Improves On

To appreciate improvement you need to understand the original.

A covered call is one of the most straightforward income strategies in markets. You buy 100 shares of a company. You sell someone else the right to buy those shares from you at a higher price (a call option) and they pay you a premium for that right. If the stock never reaches that price by expiry, the option dies worthless, you keep the premium, and you do it again next week/month/year etc. If the stock does get called away, you sell at a price you agreed to in advance which is still profitable, just capped.

Simple and effective when done right.

However, the main drawback of the covered call is that it can require a lot of working capital, especially for many of the assets that I know and love.

Consider that running a covered call on CME Group right now with the stock sitting at $303 means owning 100 shares at $303 each. So over $30,000, locked in a single position producing perhaps $300–400 a month in premium income.

*The 30 day ATM call on CME is $3.53 mid-bid/ask at time of writing

That’s decent yield. But it’s being extracted from an enormous base, with $30,000 stuck and working at roughly 1% per month. And given CME pays only a modest dividend of ~3.5% the returns from yield alone might not be worth the management time.

For decades the covered call was the tool of choice for many (it still is).

Then options markets matured. And someone with an eye for leverage found the fulcrum.

The Lever

Here’s the insight at the heart of the PMCC, stated plainly:

A deep in-the-money call option with a long expiry behaves almost identically to owning the shares — at a fraction of the cost.

When I buy a deep in-the-money call option with a long expiry, it behaves almost identically to owning the shares but I’m spending a fraction of the cost.

When I position a call option deep enough in the money, it moves nearly dollar-for-dollar with the underlying stock. It tracks price closely because there’s less extrinsic, or time value in it. It carries the same directional exposure and — this is the critical part — I can sell short-dated calls against it, exactly as I would if I held the shares outright.

So instead of spending $30,000 on 100 shares, I spend a fraction of that on a LEAP (Long-term Equity Anticipation Security), essentially a long-dated call option, and use that as my foundation. Then each cycle, I sell a short-dated call against it, collecting the premium or selling for capital gains in the event of assignment and repeat.

The structure I use, distilled:

I buy a deep in-the-money call expiring 12–24 months out. This becomes my synthetic stock position — my lever.

I sell a short-dated out-of-the-money call against it each cycle. This is my rent.

Collect. Reset. Repeat.

No borrowed money. No margin calls. My maximum possible loss is defined the moment I enter being the price I paid for the long call. What I’ve built is a replacement for share ownership using pure structure, with my capital requirement slashed and the fulcrum placed exactly where Archimedes would have wanted it.

The Trades — Real Positions.

This is where it stops being theory.

What follows are some live positions from my own portfolio. Trades I’m actively running and sharing with Machina Capitalis premium members each cycle. The numbers aren’t hypothetical. They’re what the machine is actually producing right now.

CME Group — The Aggressive Configuration

CME is a business I understand and respect: it earns revenue every time a derivative contract changes hands, regardless of market direction. When volatility rises, its income rises. It’s a toll road on financial uncertainty which makes it an excellent foundation for a systematic income strategy IMHO.

The stock is trading at $303 and I have just notified premium members of the trade I entered:

Long: January 2027 $200 call = $10,340

Short: FEB 27 2026 $305 call ~$310 premium collected

Total capital deployed: $10,340 Compared to the $30,300 the share-based equivalent demands today.

The short call sits roughly 9% above the current price (out of the money), giving the stock room to move while the premium lands in the account.

If the short call expires worthless, $310 is collected. That’s 3.0% return on capital in a single week.

The long call remains intact. The position resets. The machine runs again next month.

If CME rallies through $305 and assignment occurs, the spread closesAt expiry, a CME close at or above $305 implies a capped payoff of roughly $1,150 before costs, based on the structure’s defined spread.

Personally I love using this setup.

Estimated returns shown are payoff-diagram projections based on specific expiry assumptions; actual results will vary materially depending on price path, volatility, timing of exit, and execution.

ICE — The Patient Rent Engine

Intercontinental Exchange is trading at $154 today. Yesterday I entered the following trade:

Long: January 2027 $125 call ~$3,710

Short: March 20 2026 $160 call ~$181 premium collected

The short call sits approximately 7% above the current price. The wide gap between the long and short strikes makes assignment unlikely by design. This isn’t a position built to close, it’s built to run. To collect rent on a long-dated asset while that asset quietly compounds in the background.

The result so far: $181 collected, approximately 4.9% return on capital over a 60-day cycle.

Long call intact. Next short sold in April if the March contract expires worthless.

What These Numbers Suggest

A brief pause is warranted here, because these figures deserve honest framing.

Annualized returns of the likes above are not a promise. No strategy produces clockwork results across every market condition, and anyone presenting options income as guaranteed yield is someone to walk away from. The numbers are shown purely to illustrate the capital efficiency of one tactic vs the other.

The traditional CME covered call locks up $30,300 today. This PMCC locks up $10,340. That $20,000 difference doesn’t disappear it remains available, if I so choose, for more trades or investment positions.

Over time, systematic reallocation and repeatable income collection can materially influence results, particularly when applied consistently across multiple market cycles. This approach depends less on prediction and more on structure, patience, and disciplined execution.

A Final Thought

Archimedes never actually moved the Earth. But he understood something that most people in his time didn’t: that the question was never about strength. It was always about position. Find the right fulcrum, apply the lever correctly, and physics does the rest.

That’s what Machina Capitalis is built around. Not predictions. Not hot tips. Not the exhausting performance of appearing to know what markets will do next week.

My machine designed carefully and run consistently, emphasising structured income processes and disciplined execution over market prediction.

The two positions above are live as of February 20th, 2026. The premium members who follow these trades saw the setups before the trades were placed: from the entry logic, the strike selection to the management plan, and the exit criteria. Every cycle, they see the next ones.

The two positions above were live as of February 20th, 2026, with premium members able to follow the full decision process in advance — from structure selection through to management and exit planning.

If this framework has prompted you to consider how repeatable option structures can influence income and capital allocation over time, that line of inquiry is worth exploring to see whether it may be appropriate for you.

The lever exists. The fulcrum is here.

The premium tier is where we place it together.

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Disclaimer: This article is provided for general information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Options involve risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Examples shown are from a real portfolio and are not recommendations. Readers should consider their own circumstances and conduct independent research before making any investment decisions.

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The full video breakdown — including sizing, expiries, and risk structure — is available exclusively to paying members below.

Six weeks into 2026, total profit stands at $15,731, representing a 31.5% return on capital — driven by methodical short and options positioning, not leverage, not prediction.

This session is a live walk-through of how I’m actually deploying capital in real markets: no theory, no hindsight, no headline-driven trades.

Importantly, this is not a fully deployed portfolio. A meaningful portion of capital is deliberately held back. The objective is to start from a realistic base and build patiently — allowing structure and duration to do the work rather than forcing exposure.

I break down how I scale into positions slowly using options, why I favour path-dependent ETFs on the short side, and how I think about return on capital when volatility is elevated but direction remains uncertain.

Inside the full video, I go several layers deeper.

I show:

• Exactly how I size and layer positions over time

• The reasoning behind choosing specific expiries, including 2028-dated options

• How I think about NAV versus market price when underwriting multi-year upside

• The risk scenarios that don’t show up in backtests — and how I structure around them

• How I use options not just for income, but as a one-man insurance operation within the portfolio

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and reflects my personal process. I’m documenting my own process and positioning — this is not a recommendation or financial advice.

Performance and Trades Screenshots

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The approach is straightforward: I sell put options on assets I’d be comfortable owning long term, at prices below where they’re currently trading.

I also use shorter-dated expiries to keep duration short and optionality high, allowing positions to be recycled in what’s known as the ‘Wheel Strategy’

If the option expires, the premium reflects compensation for taking on downside risk. If assigned, the result is ownership at an effective price below the market level at the time the trade was opened.

Below are three examples from my own account, including the strike, expiry, and position size. They’re shared for transparency and illustration only — think of this as a page from my private trading journal.

Let’s take a look.

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In the biblical tradition, abundance only appears once a vessel exists to contain it. The oil multiplies after the jars are prepared. Without the vessel, there is nothing to hold the blessing.

Machina Capitalis begins from that premise.

This video is not about trade ideas, although you will see examples of those, it’s about the engine that can perform the function of generating and tracking performance over time.

What I’m going to walk you through is the framework I use to:

• Organise multiple options strategies inside one system

• Allocate and recycle capital deliberately

• Track income, profits and exposure cleanly

• Evaluate performance at the portfolio level

Most investors skip this step. They chase outcomes before building the machine that produces them.

Premium members will follow me as I go through a section of my own personal portfolio, explaining with real life examples how I enter trades and track performance. You’ll also gain access to a link with an example template ready to be adapted to your purpose and used immediately. You can swipe it, adapt it, and begin building your own engine from day one.

The objective here isn’t excitement. It’s durability.

We begin by building the machine.

Access & Early Adopter Terms

For February only, I’m opening a limited lifetime subscription to Machina Capitalis at $2,997.

This is offered as a reward for early action and early adoption — for those who want to build the machine alongside me from the ground up.

You pay upfront once and gain access forever.

Before subscribing, you must review the eligibility criteria.

This publication is exclusive.

For those who prefer flexibility, an annual subscription is available at $1,997.

Both prices are intentionally set at early-stage levels and are expected to rise over time as the system, content library, and track record expand.

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Thales, a greek-speaking Ionian, lived in the 6th century BC in a little coastal trading post known as Miletus.

Aristotle recounts that Thales, like all philosophers of the time, was mocked for his lack of material wealth. “If philosophers are so wise,” critics said, “why are they poor?”

Thales answered not with words but with the following prowess: He paid cheap rental fees (read call options) to secure the rights to every olive press in the region for the upcoming season.

When the harvest arrived and demand exploded, those rights became extraordinarily valuable. Thales didn’t even need to press olives himself. He simply sold the now highly valuable rights for a massive profit.

He then went back to being a philosopher.

In modern terms, Thales had purchased a call option: the right, but not the obligation, to control a scarce asset. His downside was capped at the premium paid. His upside was open-ended. These trades exhibit extreme return-on-capital asymmetry in favorable outcomes.

By committing only a fraction of the capital required for ownership, one gains levered economic exposure without the fragility of debt or margin. These trades remain very much alive today and form a core pillar of Machina Capitalis as per the below example.

Insurance - The Other Side Of The Coin

Human societies have always tried to tame risk, a fact that lead to the invention of insurance.

Some of the earliest insurance contracts date back to Hammurabi of Babylon (modern day Iraq) in 1750 BC.

Hammurabi might be the first known underwriter of insurance by providing loss insurance on sea voyages within his kingdom. Put simply, if the ship returned successfully, the sailors repaid any loans + a fee (premium) whereas in the event of an accident, all loans were forgiven and the underwriter (Hammurabi) assumed ownership of whatever (if anything) could later be salvaged.

In modern parlance, Hammurabi effectively sold a put option.

This concept evolved over millennia into new forms such as the maritime insurance policies of Genoa and Venice in the 12-1400’s and the rise of Lloyd’s of London in the late 1600s. Insurance has always been about the same exchange: certainty for a price. Risk was transferred from merchants who could not bear loss to underwriters who could. That logic persists today. The seller of an option plays the role of the insurer absorbing uncertainty in exchange for premium.

In the case of Thales, the owners of the Olive presses gave away potential upside for the season in exchange for a guaranteed payment.

This forms the other side of the option coin: on one side, speculation, on the other insurance.

The advantage of the modern day options market is that it provides the savvy trader the opportunity to sell insurance on quality assets and effectively to get paid to wait for the opportunity to acquire them at a discount to current market prices.

(Example below).

Additionally there exists the ability to sell such options and then purchase cheaper ‘re-insurance options thus reducing the capital on hand required and hugely increasing returns on capital.

Both these tactics and many more like them form pillars of Machina Capitalis and membership gives access to specific ideas as to their implementation providing the opportunity for members to effectively form their own individual insurance company, a personal money machine.

Modern Day Markets

Exchange-traded options entered public markets in 1973 when the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) launched the first standardized, exchange-traded equity options.

For the first time, individuals could:

• Sell insurance without being an institution

• Rent out capital without owning factories

Fast-forward to today, with the expansion of the internet and technology, the Machina Capitalis documents the use of these tools to responsibly to generate income without inventory, staff, or geography

Like in this example: where I made $4,080 reserving just $43,920 capital over 40 days selling puts whilst on a road trip in remote northern Argentina.

Anywhere with internet access is fair game.

From Thales’ olive presses to Hammurabi’s trade loans, the purpose of the foregoing has been to establish a historical foundation for the concepts applied for profit within Machina Capitalis. While specific trades are provided, the deeper emphasis is on understanding the underlying architecture: how and why these tools work rather than simply distributing them. Mastery comes not merely from copying positions, but from grasping the logic that has governed risk, insurance, and asymmetric payoff structures for millennia.

If you’re interested in becoming a member and learning how I do this, please refer to the acceptance criteria on this page.

— Benjamin Demase
Founder, Machina Capitalis

Disclaimer:
This publication is for informational and educational purposes only and reflects my personal experience and views. I am not a licensed financial advisor or financial professional, and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, or tax advice. Trading and investing—particularly in options and derivatives—involves substantial risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and no strategy discussed is guaranteed to be profitable or suitable for all individuals. You are solely responsible for your own decisions and should conduct independent research and consult appropriately licensed professionals before acting.

You asked for more of this - so here it is.
Today’s piece is an intro to an entire segment I’m building dedicated to building and scaling a digital income stream through publicly traded stocks + options.

Many of you have followed my adventures for a while now - which were mainly covered in my old publication - The Maverick Life and it seems you fancy building a Maverick life of your own, or at least an extra income stream in today’s economic environment.

Update: The Maverick Life is fun for a certain stage of life, but it gets old after a while. The concept of identity aligning with purpose is the key to a meaningful life, ergo I named the publication Machina Capitalis with the focus dedicated to building the machine - what you do with the money is up to you.

Now that’s all totally fine except I have to say that the Maverick life isn’t all it’s made out to be by the, quite frankly insufferable fugazis on X who boast about how great their lifestyle is whilst being unable to pay their internet bill in a $500 per month 1 Bedroom apartment..anyway I digress..

Those who followed me back then know to whom I’m referring. This publication is deliberately and exclusively for elite investors and high quality people.

The focus in this segment is on building an income engine designed to generate consistent cash flow, protect downside, and still leave upside potential intact.

Think of it like building an engine – it needs all the cylinders firing in harmony. In this section of the publication I’ll be showing you the cylinders of this options income engine and the philosophy that makes it work. These are free to learn, and you can apply some ideas right away. The application of the techniques will be for premium members.

Philosophy & Foundations

I started my journey using options during the COVID era. I had just sold my first real business and was suffering the lockdowns in Victoria, Australia.

There’s nothing like being isolated to make you want to travel and nothing like having your freedom ‘revoked’ to make you realise the importance of diversification geographically, politically and financially.

Or as the great Doug Casey would say:

“Have your assets in one country, your citizenship in another, and your ass in a third. That way no one government has too much control over your life.”

I went down the rabbit-hole of becoming a truly sovereign individual - I began the process of obtaining multiple citizenships and residencies, opened global brokerage accounts and payment carriers, bank accounts etc. Therefore I speak from a place of actual experience - please be careful listening to the spruikers out there, they may have a large following as a result of selling controversy and hopium but I caution being very selective about who you may choose to do business with.

In this group you’ll gain access to my trusted sphere of contacts in this space

I sold down my Australian real estate portfolio and began to move my capital into more liquid, public markets - keeping my capital-light business interests, yet remaining nimble enough to move at a moments notice if needed.

The final piece of the puzzle was always building an income source that had no geographic ties - one I could scale and take with me wherever and whenever I want.

This is where options made the most sense for me.

I thought about doing the whole e-commerce thing, but I never liked the management side of running my own business, I always preferred the creative aspects of entrepreneurship.

Selling options for me is about building a digital source of income that I control. Not so much about speculations with large payoffs - although they can be used for that also. This is an income stream that, if you’re good, you can run from anywhere with an internet connection, without employees, inventory, or overhead.

It’s flexible—you can trade more when you want to increase income or scale back when life gets busy. It can fit alongside your existing job, business, or travel schedule, making it perfect for anyone who values freedom and autonomy. Whether you want to work from home, a beach café, or on a mini-retirement adventure, options income can give you control over both time and cash flow.

However, I never said this was easy - especially if you try to go it alone. There’s a learning curve to it, just like anything else in life.

Why I Like Options for Income

• Digital & Portable – Can be done from anywhere with an internet connection.

• No Employees or Overhead – No staff to manage, no office, no physical inventory.

• Flexible Workload – Trade more when you want higher income or scale back when life gets busy.

• Pairs With Other Income Sources – Works alongside a job, business, or investments.

• Scalable – Start small and grow as you build confidence and capital.

• Mini-Retirement Friendly – The system allows for travel and time off without shutting down your income stream.

• Leverage - I can gain100x leverage and pre-define the risk before entering into a trade. No debt nor interest applicable.

Income Vs Long Term Compounding

I like seperate my portfolios according to their purpose and respective goals.

I have a long term wealth portfolio for my favourite capital light compounders which you’ll read about in the king They’re mainly Royalties or similar type business models - I’m always raving about their superiority and hence that earned me my nickname ‘ The Royalty King’.

Generating income through options and selective short selling requires a different mindset - one that you’ll learn here. This is an operating company, a business that makes sales and purchases with the purpose of profits.

The main approaches I use:

• The Insurance model: Think like the house, not the gambler. Selling options contracts that have a statistical advantage to win 80-95% of the time receiving cash income upfront. Once the contract period is over, the cash is mine to keep.

• The Renting/capital re-cycle model: Recycling capital by buying or controlling stock and then “renting” it for yield. This can turn a portfolio into a monthly pay check machine. I’ll be going into detail with this and providing real-life example trades to premium members to help it sink in.

• The Asymmetric Payoff: Buying select options with cheap volatility with an eye towards massive payouts. Like Thales of Miletus.

• Short-selling Path dependent ETFS - stocks that are mathematically guaranteed to decay towards $0. I use various methods of short-selling to receive a bundle of cash upfront, then sit back and watch my profits rise while the underlying asset declines in price.

The Inner Workings Of The Machine

The Covered Call

You own stock. You sell a call option against it. Simple, reliable, and pays you cash every month while you wait. If the stock trades flat or rises slowly, you win twice: dividends + option premium.

Eg: This ATM Covered call I sold on RIG in Feb of ‘23 whilst celebrating Carnival in Bocas Del Toro, Panamá.

Capital: $6,630 Premium sold: $370

ROI: 5.59% in <4 days!!

The Maverick Life

A Simple yield play offering a potential 5.59% Weekly ROI

*Disclaimer: The purpose of this publication (Options Mavericks) is to document my journey with options trading for income and traveling. I am not qualified to give any financial advice and nothing I say or do is to be interpreted as investment advice…

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3 years ago · 4 likes · The ROI Club

Cylinder 2: The Cash-Secured Put

Instead of waiting for a dip to buy a stock, you get paid to wait. You sell a put option at the price you want to own it, and if the stock drops, you own it cheaper. If not, you keep the premium. Like in this example where I made $4,080 using just $43,920 capital in 40 days selling puts on RIG 4.10%↑.

You own a dividend stock, sell a call for income, and buy a cheap out-of-the-money put for protection. Think of it as generating yield while building a floor under your portfolio. (Video here)

Cylinder 4: The Poor Man’s Covered Call

For when you don’t have the capital for a classic covered call. Instead of tying up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you use a long-dated call (LEAP) as your stock replacement, then sell short-term calls against it. This frees up capital for other opportunities while still generating monthly income. The return on capital can be insane!

Cylinder 5: Dividends + Yield Boosters.

This cylinder uses quality, dividend-paying companies – think pipelines, royalties, midstreams, and utilities. These stocks already generate a natural yield. The options strategy is simply the turbocharger. You’re long the stock (or a synthetic stock position like a PMCC) and you sell an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put at the same time. It’s like running a covered call and a cash-secured put together, pulling in premium from both sides plus enjoying the dividend.

Cylinder 6: Credit Spreads

A defined-risk, stat-arb income play. Instead of selling a naked call or put, you pair it with another option further out of the money, capping your risk. You still collect premium, but your downside is locked in from the start. Perfect when you want that sweet premium income without the “blow up” risk that naked options can carry.

This is just the blueprint.
These are the parts, but the real magic is learning how to assemble them into one coherent income machine.

Cylinder 7: Butterfly

A precision income tool for tightly ranged assets like bond or gold ETFS. You sell two options at the same strike and buy one option above and one option below. It’s cheap to put on, has defined risk, and can deliver a great return if the stock pins near your middle strike at expiry. Perfect when you expect a stock to stay in a price range and you want to get paid.

Cylinder 8: Iron Condor

The neutral, balanced cashflow machine. You sell an out-of-the-money call spread and an out-of-the-money put spread at the same time, creating a range where you keep the full premium as long as the stock stays in your lane. Your risk and reward are both capped, but often can provide an expected profit 90% of the time.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy, including those discussed here, will achieve its objectives or generate profits. You should carefully consider your investment objectives, risk tolerance, and financial situation before making any investment decisions.

This is just the blueprint.
These are the parts, but the real magic is learning how to operate the machine.

Generating Location-Independent Income to Live:

• Where you want

• When you want

• With whom you want

• Doing what you want

  

If this speaks to you and you meet the requirements listed in the terms and conditions page, considering applying to be a part of the group.

Disclaimer: This publication is intended solely for documenting my personal journey with trading and investments for income and travel purposes. I am not a certified financial advisor nor am I a financial professional and none of the content provided should be construed as investment advice. It is essential to conduct your own thorough research and consult a registered financial service provider for appropriate guidance. I cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information presented. Any actions taken based on the information shared in any of my work are done at your own risk and discretion.

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