What is the wheel strategy?

The wheel is an options income strategy that cycles between selling cash-secured puts (CSPs) and covered calls (CCs) on stocks you'd be happy to own. You collect premium on every leg — whether the stock goes up, down, or sideways.

How many stocks does OptyTrades analyze?

We scan 8,000+ US stocks from all 16 exchanges via the SIP consolidated feed — covering the full market. After filtering for options availability, price, volume, and market cap, typically 1,000-1,200 stocks qualify.

What makes your entry signals different?

Most screeners use 2-3 indicators. Our signals combine 7 dimensions: RSI, SMA position, Bollinger Bands, drawdown, volume confirmation, swing-point trend regime analysis, and support/resistance proximity. We also factor in the broader market health.

Do I need a large account to use the wheel?

No. We show capital required for every recommendation, and you can filter by share price. Many stocks in the $10-$25 range only require $1,000-$2,500 per contract — making the wheel accessible for accounts of all sizes.

What's included in the free tier?

The full screener table with Quality Scores, sorting, filtering, and basic stock detail views. No time limit, no credit card required. Pro unlocks entry signals, strike recommendations, Options Grades, trend/S/R analysis, the Trade Journal, and watchlists.

Getting Started — OptyTrades Guide

01Getting started

OptyTrades helps you find stocks worth running the wheel strategy on — an options income approach built on selling cash-secured puts (CSPs) and covered calls (CCs) on companies you'd be content to own. If you're new to the wheel, our methodology page explains the mechanics in detail.

This walks through your first five minutes — from opening the screener to reading a full trade setup.

Prefer to watch? Real trades broken down start to finish, plus beginner walkthroughs of cash-secured puts and covered calls.

OptyTrades on YouTube Or browse the library here →

Quick-start: your first five minutes

Open the Screener

Head to the Screener. It starts from a universe of 8,000+ US stocks, filters on fundamentals, options quality and assignment risk, and ranks whatever survives by Quality Score. Nothing to configure — results are already there when the page loads, and every visit starts from the same clean slate.

The OptyTrades screener on load: market health banner, the Open Filters button and scope picker, the match count, and the table ranked by Quality Score — The screener on load — ranked by Quality Score, highest first. Every filter lives behind Open Filters.

Read the first three columns

The three leading columns do most of the work. Quality Score (0–100) rates the company on fundamentals — is this a business worth owning? Safety is a balance-sheet badge: Fortress, Solid, Caution or Danger. Setup reads current conditions as Favorable, Neutral or Unfavorable. After those come the ticker, price, yield, volume, P/E, the next earnings date, and sector.

Close-up of the screener's Quality Score, Safety, Setup, ticker, price, yield, volume, P/E, earnings and sector columns — Quality Score, Safety and Setup lead — hover any header for its full definition.

A high score is not the same as a good trade. Quality Score rates the company. Whether the options are worth selling is a separate question, and whether today is a sensible moment on the chart is a third. The screener keeps them apart on purpose — that's what the filter groups in the next step are for. A great company with a thin, illiquid chain is not a wheel candidate.

Narrow it down

Everything that filters the list lives behind Open Filters at the top left. It opens a panel on the right with four groups — Fundamentals (would I be happy owning it?), Options (does it pay enough?), Technicals (is now the moment?) and Size & liquidity (does it fit my account?). Nothing needs applying: the table updates as you change a setting.

If you don't know where to begin, use Start from at the top of the panel. Picking Wheel sets a sensible quality floor, premium floor and liquidity floor in one go — then adjust anything you disagree with. Everything a strategy sets shows up as a removable chip beside the button, so a short list always explains itself.

Two things worth knowing early. Several filters — IV, IV Rank, Assignment Quality, Wheel Readiness and CSP Signal — need the Options data switch on, and say so when it isn't. And filters reset every visit by design, so a setting you forgot about can never quietly hide half the market. If you build a combination you like, Save this set at the bottom of the panel keeps it on your account.

The filter panel open on the right, showing Start from and the four groups — Fundamentals, Options, Technicals, and Size and liquidity — with Save this set at the bottom — Every filter, grouped by the question it answers. Greyed-out rows need the Options data switch.

Click any row for the breakdown

Clicking a row expands it in place. You'll see the Quality Score out of 100 alongside every factor that produced it — profitability, P/E, earnings growth and trajectory, analyst consensus, 52-week position, beta, financial health, Piotroski F-Score, bankruptcy risk, Graham valuation, dividend sustainability, revenue and cash-flow health — each with its own points and a one-line explanation. This is where a score stops being a number and starts being a reason.

An expanded stock row showing the Quality Score out of 100 and the full grid of scored factors with points and explanations — The breakdown shows every factor behind the score, with the points each one earned.

Tip: You can jump straight to any company with the Symbol box at the top of the screener. It filters as you type — try AAPL and clear it again to return to the list you were on.

Read the entry signal

Further down the detail view are the CSP Entry Signal and CC Entry Signal cards. Each reports a verdict — Favorable, Neutral or Unfavorable — describing how aligned conditions are right now, and lists the specific reasons behind it: RSI, distance from the 20-day moving average, whether the stock has pulled back, and so on. The verdict describes conditions; it is not an instruction to trade.

A CSP Entry Signal card showing its verdict alongside the technical reasons behind it — The entry signal states a verdict and, more usefully, the reasons behind it.

Compare the strike reference levels

Below each signal are three strike tiers — Conservative, Balanced and Aggressive — each showing the strike, delta, OTM percentage, expiry, estimated premium, capital required and annualized return. They are reference levels spanning a risk range, not a ranked recommendation: the conservative strike trades premium for a wider cushion, the aggressive one does the reverse. Verify the live premium with your broker before acting, since quoted premiums are estimates from cached chain data.

Three strike reference tiers — Conservative, Balanced and Aggressive — each with delta, OTM percent, premium, capital required and annualized return — Three tiers across the risk range, with the capital and annualized return each implies.

What's next? Read the screener in detail for every column and filter, Scores & Grades for how the ratings are built, Entry Signals for what drives a verdict, and the Earnings Calendar — earnings is the single biggest source of assignment risk, so knowing what reports when matters before you pick an expiry.

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