What is the wheel strategy?

The wheel is a repeating options-income cycle: sell a cash-secured put on a stock you'd own → if assigned, you own shares → sell covered calls against those shares → if called away, restart with another CSP. Premium compounds across the cycle.

How is wheel yield calculated?

Wheel yield is cumulative premium received divided by capital deployed, scaled by time. Our tracker computes both the simple period yield and a time-weighted annualized return across all completed cycles.

Which stocks are best for the wheel?

Liquid US equities and ETFs with stable fundamentals you would be comfortable owning. Common choices include large-cap dividend payers (KO, JNJ), broad ETFs (SPY, QQQ), and high-IV but high-quality names (NVDA, TSLA — with smaller position sizing).

Is the wheel strategy profitable?

Historically, the wheel produces 10–25% annualized returns on liquid US equities during normal market regimes, but loses money in sustained downtrends because being short puts forces stock purchases at falling prices.

Where is my trade data stored?

All wheel-tracker data lives in your browser's localStorage. We never see or store your trade history on a server. Clearing your browser data removes it permanently.

Wheel strategy calculator and trade tracker

Log the whole cycle: sell CSP → (maybe) get assigned → sell covered calls → (maybe) get called away → repeat. We compute cumulative premium, realised P&L, and your annualized wheel yield. Saved locally — no account required.

The wheel strategy combines cash-secured puts, potential assignment, and covered calls into a repeated cycle on stocks the investor is willing to own. This tracker logs every leg (CSP → assignment → CC → called-away) and computes cumulative premium collected, realized P&L, effective cost basis after each cycle, and annualized wheel yield on capital deployed. All data is stored in your browser's localStorage — no server upload. The strategy caps upside if the stock rallies past your call strike and exposes you to the full downside of the underlying if it declines.

Add a leg

Date

Ticker

Strike

Premium / share

Contracts

Expiration

Notes

Portfolio summary

Total premium

Total buy-back / exit cost

Net realized P&L

Open positions

Avg annualized yield

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Cost-basis P&L (if assigned shares sold)

Trade ledger

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Date	Ticker	Type	Strike	Premium	Contracts	Expiry	P&L

Cumulative premium

Premium by ticker

Wheel-strategy methodology, formulas, and worked examples

Formula

Wheel score = 0.5(annualized screen yield, normalized) + 0.3(liquidity score) + 0.2(assignment-risk score). Each sub-score is 0–100.

Inputs

Underlying ticker
CSP and CC strike preferences
Target delta band (default 0.20–0.30 for CSPs)
Cash to deploy (per CSP cycle = strike × 100)
Optional: assignment-acceptance flag (do you want to hold shares?)

Conservative worked example

SOFI at $14, 30-day $13.50 CSP (delta -0.22), premium $0.42. Sub-scores: yield 65 (annualized 32%), liquidity 80 (tight spreads), assignment-risk 60 (moderate delta). Composite = 0.5(65) + 0.3(80) + 0.2(60) = 69. Cycle return on collateral = 3.1%.

Aggressive worked example

PLTR at $32, 14-day $30 CSP (delta -0.34), premium $1.25. Sub-scores: yield 88 (annualized 108%!), liquidity 75, assignment-risk 35 (high delta). Composite = 0.5(88) + 0.3(75) + 0.2(35) = 74. Higher score but materially higher assignment risk.

Losing outcome example

After running the wheel on AMC for 6 months, you collected $1,200 in premium but the underlying fell from $35 to $5, leaving you with shares worth $500 against a cost basis (assignment) of $3,500. Net result: -$1,800 despite "winning" every cycle. Premium income does not protect against a sustained bear move in the underlying.

Commissions and slippage

Default commission: $0.65 per contract per leg.
Default slippage: 25% of bid-ask spread; wider for low-priced or thinly traded names.

What this calculator does NOT model

Roll cost (rolling a losing CSP forward or down).
Tax treatment of premium / cost basis adjustments.
Account-type fit (naked options not permitted in standard IRAs).
Sector concentration limits.

Related metric definitions

For the full mathematical methodology, see methodology. Educational only — not investment advice. See the disclaimer.