The question that I have is, if someone is looking to trim / convert stocks to cash, why wouldn't they sell covered calls vs just selling the stock?
Seems you would be getting more $ if the stock hits strike ... and gaining free money (the premium) if it doesn't.
		
		
	 
I used to sell covered calls with the same mind set as you. I've heard it described as "picking up pennies". Consider, in your NFLX example. you've got roughly $75000 invested in the underlying yet the call is only netting you about $1000 which is just over 1%. That's not a lot of juice that you're squeezing out of all that money.
Anyway, I rarely sell covered calls anymore because it only takes one or two instances of getting slammed for thousands with a stock that tanks. If NFLX falls back towards your cost basis (let's even just say $600 per share), that is a $15000 loss which you're stuck with unless you buy back the call then sell the stock, often when it is too late.
My hunch is that, in the long run, I would have been just as well off selling the underlying stock as I would have selling the call. I've never crunched the numbers. But it can be very demoralizing to net some of those small gains two, three, four times--only to get slammed in the fifth instance where the stock gaps down and you're still holding. With NFLX, that is pretty unlikely, hence the light premium.
OTOH, while I have your attention, I have employed the opposite strategy to good effect: buying slightly out of the money or at-the-money calls on low beta stocks (often ones that pay a dividend) to gain leverage. I'm thinking of todem's pick of CVS. If it's trading at $50 and you buy 100 shares, that $5000 would have netted a nice gain over the past several months. However, if that money would have been used to buy at-the-money calls, you could have purchased 10 of those for $5000, having the effect of owning 1000 shares. I love that 10x leverage. The calls are markedly cheaper for low beta names like CVS. And if the stock pays a dividend, that really depresses the cost of options because it forces a stock to decline on the ex-div date. With smart timing, or with a long-term call, you can manage the wonkiness of dividends and use options to get great leverage. I'm arguing for a shift away from selling covered calls (just sell the underlying stock) and towards buying at-the-money, long term calls on stable names that you think are going to rise due to an upcoming catalyst or because they are underpriced. LW is a good recent example I pimped here two months ago.