How to Use the Wheel Strategy Screener

The wheel screener ranks ~30 of the most liquid US tickers by their combined CSP + CC yield, then layers in liquidity, market cap, and IV regime to produce a Wheel Score. This guide walks through every input, every output, and how to interpret what you see.

If you've never run the wheel, read The Wheel Strategy: A Complete Guide first. This page assumes you understand the basic cycle: sell a cash-secured put, get assigned, sell covered calls against the shares, and get called away.

The wheel cycle, visualized

Each cube represents one stage of the wheel. Arrows show capital + premium flow. Center shows the cycle total: $214 in premiums plus $150 in capital appreciation over ~14 days.

What the screener is doing under the hood

For every ticker in our 30-name universe, the screener runs two separate option screens in parallel:

A cash-secured-put screen within your delta and DTE bands — picks the highest-yielding OTM put.
A covered-call screen with the same delta and DTE bands — picks the highest-yielding OTM call.

If both legs exist and the combined annualized yield clears your minimum, the ticker enters the candidate set. Then we compute four 0-100 composite scores:

Wheel Score

A weighted composite: 40% combined yield, 25% liquidity, 20% delta-quality (peak at 0.27), 15% IV regime sweet-spot. Higher is better. Above 70 is considered a strong wheel candidate.

Risk Score

Higher means more risk, NOT a good thing. Components: IV level (60% weight), distance from conservative delta of 0.20 (25%), market-cap penalty for mid/small caps (10%), sector cyclicality (5%). A score below 35 is conservative; 35-60 is moderate; above 60 is aggressive.

Liquidity Score

Log-scale combination of volume + open interest across both the CSP and CC strikes. Above 80 means deeply liquid; below 50 means thinner spreads on entry/exit.

Input-by-input walkthrough

Account size — Used to compute contracts affordable and annual income potential. The screener divides your account size by the CSP collateral (strike × 100) to see how many contracts each candidate could support.

Monthly income target — Currently informational; the Income Goal Planner uses this more directly.

Max stock price — Excludes candidates whose underlying trades above this price. Useful for smaller accounts that can't afford 1 contract on $400 stocks.

Delta range — The probability band for option strikes. 0.20 delta ≈ 20% ITM probability. Lower delta = safer, lower yield. Higher delta = more premium, more assignment risk.

DTE range — Days to expiration. Weeklies (7 DTE) pay enormous annualized premiums but require constant management. 30-45 DTE is the sweet spot for most income sellers.

Min combined yield — Floor for combined CSP + CC annualized yield. 5-10% is reasonable for safer names; 25%+ for aggressive plays.

Min market cap — Filters out smaller, more volatile names. "Large" requires $10B+ market cap.

Exclude sectors — Comma-separated. Use this to remove sectors you don't want exposure to (e.g., "Energy" if oil cycles worry you).

How to read the results table

Each row is one wheel candidate. Click a row to expand the "Why this stock" + "Potential risks" detail panel.

Ticker — symbol and company name
Price — current spot
CSP yield / CC yield — annualized return per leg, with strike and DTE underneath
Combined — average of the two yields (the headline number)
Annual income — projected income assuming successful cycle repetition
Wheel Score — composite quality (higher = better)
Liquidity — bid-ask + volume + OI signal
Risk — composite risk (higher = riskier)

Worked example: interpreting a result

Suppose SOFI shows up at the top with:

Spot $15.75
CSP yield 90%, CC yield 126% (combined 108%)
Wheel Score 82, Risk Score 64
Annual income $53K

How to read this:

The 108% annualized yield assumes you successfully run a weekly cycle on $15-strike puts and $16.50-strike calls without ever getting assigned at a bad price. In reality, IV crush + assignment frequency + adverse moves will eat ~50% of that number — so figure 40-55% real annualized.

The Risk Score of 64 is the warning: SOFI is mid-cap fintech with 67% IV. Position-size accordingly. A 20% drawdown is possible in any given month.

Bottom line: this is a high-conviction wheel candidate for an aggressive trader who's comfortable owning SOFI at $15.

Common mistakes to avoid

Don't set the min yield filter so high that nothing passes. If the screener returns zero candidates, drop min yield to 0.05 and look at what shows up — the realistic floor depends on the current IV regime.

Don't sort by Wheel Score alone. Cross-check Risk Score and Liquidity Score before committing capital. A 95-Wheel-Score on a 30-Liquidity candidate means wide spreads will eat your edge.

Don't take annualized yields literally. The 100%+ APY numbers assume perfect cycle repetition, which never happens. Plan for 40-60% of the displayed number as realistic.

Try it now

Open the Wheel Strategy Screener →