Own KLAC Stock? Here Is How To Collect 21% A Year On It

Get paid a real income now on your KLA shares, income you keep no matter what, in exchange for agreeing to sell at a higher price if the stock gets there.

KLA (KLAC) has been a monster performer, riding the AI-fueled boom in semiconductor investment. But after a huge run, the stock now trades about 32% below its 52-week high, leaving many long-term holders wondering what comes next. For those owners, there’s a straightforward way to get paid for their patience, generating a meaningful cash income stream right now on shares they already hold.

21% annualized income on KLAC shares you already own, with 20% of upside room, by selling a covered call.

• You own (or buy) 100 shares of KLAC near today’s price of $203.72.
• Sell one call option on KLAC expiring 6/17/2027, with a strike price of $244, about 20% above today.
• Collect roughly $3,555 in premium up front per contract (each contract covers 100 shares), which you keep no matter what the stock does.
• That premium is about 21% annualized on the $20,372 of stock, income you earn just for holding.
• If KLAC finishes above $244, your shares are called away at $244. Counting the premium, your total return works out to about 46% annualized, but you give up any gains above the strike.

Both Outcomes Put Cash In Your Pocket

If KLAC finishes below $244 on 6/17/2027, the call expires worthless, and you keep the full $3,555 premium and all your shares. That is about 17% over 307 days, income earned just for holding, and you are free to sell another call.

If KLAC finishes above $244, your 100 shares are called away at $244. You still keep the $3,555 premium, and counting it your total gain works out to about 37% over the holding period (about 46% annualized), a healthy exit. The cost of the trade is that any gain above $244 is no longer yours. And if the stock instead falls, you keep the premium but still ride the shares down: the premium offsets the first 17% of the decline over the holding period and nothing beyond it.

The Real Question: How Much Upside Is At Stake?

The trade’s only real cost is the upside you cap. So, how much blue sky are you actually giving up? The bull case is simple and powerful: KLA is at the epicenter of a massive spending cycle. Management just raised its forecast for the wafer equipment market to the “low $150 billion range in calendar 2026” and sees “significant growth to continue in calendar 2027,” fueled by relentless demand for AI infrastructure and high-bandwidth memory. The company’s own advanced packaging business is exploding, with revenue expected to grow to approximately “$1.1 billion in calendar 2026.” If that momentum continues, the stock could easily run well past your exit price. We took a closer look at the stock’s valuation journey in a separate piece.

But there’s a catch that might limit that run. Despite the booming sales, gross margins are feeling the squeeze from a “challenging memory pricing environment,” a headwind management expects will “likely continue through next year.” Analysts on the company’s latest call were pointed, with one asking why KLA seems to be “struggling” to pass on higher costs. If profitability can’t keep pace with the torrid revenue growth, it could put a ceiling on the stock’s performance, making a capped-upside trade for immediate income look pretty smart.

For investors who like the semiconductor theme but not the single-stock risk, a semiconductor ETF like SOXX offers broader exposure. The decision to cap your gains really comes down to whether you think the top-line growth story will eventually translate into fatter margins. The key thing to watch is exactly that: the company’s gross margin, which it guided to “62.5%, plus or minus 1 percentage point” for the September quarter.

How Much Could The Stocks You Hold Pay You?

You may not own KLAC, but you almost certainly own something that could be paying you. Our Covered Call Finder lets you type in a stock, or a few, and instantly see the income a covered call could generate on each, then dial the strike up or down with a slider to balance more income against more upside. It is the quickest way to see what the names in your own portfolio could pay.

Pair The Premium With Real Diversification

Selling calls on a stock you own is a sensible way to manufacture income. It is still, by design, a concentrated position, and even owning a whole sector only trades single-name risk for single-theme risk. Real diversification means spreading across sectors, so one industry stumbling does not define your result.

The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio handles that: about 30 quality, cash-generative companies across sectors are chosen on the full weight of their fundamentals rather than one premium-rich setup, then sized and re-balanced with care. The payoff is a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Keep the income from trades like this, without pinning your future to any single name or theme.