Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). So, this week we highlight one interesting put contract and one interesting call contract from the July expiration for INTC.

The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $27 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of 47 cents. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 1.7% return against the $27 commitment, or a 6.2% annualized rate of return.

START SLIDESHOW: Top YieldBoost INTC Puts.

Selling a put does not give an investor access to INTC’s upside potential the way owning shares would because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised.

So, unless Intel sees its shares fall 12.8% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $26.53 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the 47 cents from $27), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 6.2% annualized rate of return.

Worth considering is that the annualized 6.2% figure actually exceeds the 3.1% annualized dividend paid by Intel by 3.1%, based on the current share price. And yet, if an investor was to buy the stock at the going market price in order to collect the dividend, there is greater downside because the stock would have to lose 12.85% to reach the $27 strike price.

Always important when discussing dividends is the fact that, in general, dividend amounts are not always predictable and tend to follow the ups and downs of profitability at each company.

In the case of Intel, looking at the dividend history chart for INTC below can help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue and in turn, whether it is a reasonable expectation to expect a 3.1% annualized dividend yield.

Turning to the other side of the option chain, we highlight one call contract of particular interest for the July expiration, for shareholders of Intel looking to boost their incomes beyond INTC stock’s 3.1% annualized dividend yield. Selling the covered call at the $32 strike and collecting the premium based on the $1.08 bid, annualizes to an additional 12.5% rate of return against the current stock price for a total of 15.6% annualized rate in the scenario where the stock is not called away.

Any upside above $32 would be lost if Intel stock rises there and is called away, but INTC shares would have to climb 3.3% from current levels for that to happen, meaning that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 6.8% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.

START SLIDESHOW: Top YieldBoost INTC Calls.

The chart below shows the trailing-12-month trading history for Intel, highlighting in green where the $27 strike is located relative to that history and in red the $32 strike:

The chart above and the stock’s historical volatility can be helpful guides in combination with fundamental analysis to judge whether selling the July put or call options highlighted in this article deliver a rate of return that represents good reward for the risks. We calculate the trailing-12-month volatility for Intel (considering the last 250 trading day INTC historical stock prices using closing values, as well as today’s price of $30.97) to be 25%.

In mid-afternoon trading on Monday, the put volume among S&P 500 components was 686,285 contracts, with call volume at 1.21M, for a put-call ratio of 0.57 so far for the day. Compared to the long-term median put-call ratio of 0.65, that represents high call volume relative to puts.

Find out which 15 call and put options traders are talking about today.