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.

Options Strategies — Every Structure in the Builder, Explained

08eOptions Strategies

The Strategy Builder on the charts page constructs twelve structures from the live options chain, then shows what it pays. This chapter is the reference behind that menu — one page per strategy, grouped the way the picker groups them — plus ten more the builder does not construct, marked guide only. A reference shelf is allowed to be broader than the tool.

Each deep dive carries a payoff diagram, the legs it is built from, what the shape means, and the conditions the structure suits. The maximum profit, maximum loss, break-evens and collateral on every page are computed by the same engine the builder runs on rather than typed in — so the guide cannot quietly disagree with the tool.

For the builder itself — the two views, the date and volatility sliders, the heat grid and what the model behind them assumes — see The Strategy Builder.

Every example below is priced off one shared option chain — a $50 stock, puts at $40 / $45 / $50 and calls at $50 / $55 / $60 — so the twelve are directly comparable. Move between the bull put and the iron condor and the only thing that changes is the structure.

Wheel

The three structures this platform is built around. Premium collected for agreeing to a price, and the loop that connects them.

Cash-Secured Put1 legcreditbullish → neutralSell a put below the current price and hold the cash to buy the shares if they are put to you. The first half of the wheel, and the position this whole platform is built around.Covered Call2 legscreditbullish → neutralOwn 100 shares and sell a call above your basis. Income from stock you already hold, in exchange for agreeing to a price you will sell at.The Wheel2 legscreditbullish → neutralThe full cycle: sell puts until assigned, then sell calls against the shares until they are called away, then start again. Not one trade — a loop.Collar3 legsmixedbullish → neutralguide onlyOwn shares, sell a call above and buy a put below. A covered call with a floor bolted on — both ends of the outcome fixed in advance.Covered Strangle3 legscreditbullishguide onlyOwn shares, sell a call above and a put below. Two credits instead of one — and an agreement to buy a second lot if the stock falls.Protective Put2 legsdebitbullishguide onlyOwn shares and buy a put beneath them. Insurance on a holding — a known cost for a known floor, with the upside left intact.

Spreads

Two legs, where the second one defines the risk. Credit spreads collect and cap; debit spreads pay and cap.

Bull Put (credit)2 legscreditbullish → neutralSell a put and buy a further-out one beneath it. Same directional idea as a cash-secured put, for a fraction of the collateral — and with the loss capped instead of the shares.Bear Call (credit)2 legscreditbearishSell a call and buy a further-out one above it. The bull put's mirror image — a credit collected for the stock staying below a level, with the unlimited risk of a naked call removed.Bull Call (debit)2 legsdebitbullishBuy a call and sell a further-out one above it. A directional bullish bet with a known cost and a known ceiling — cheaper than the call alone, and capped.Bear Put (debit)2 legsdebitbearishBuy a put and sell a further-out one below it. A defined-cost bearish position — the bull call's mirror, and a common way to hedge shares you hold.Jade Lizard3 legscreditbullish → neutralguide onlyA short put plus a bear call spread, sized so the total credit exceeds the call spread's width. Structured correctly it has no upside risk at all.Put Ratio Spread3 legscreditbullish → neutralguide onlyBuy one put and sell two lower ones. An unbalanced structure that pays in a range and leaves a naked short beneath it — advanced, and the most easily misjudged position in this chapter.

Neutral

Positions with no directional view. What they are betting on is movement — or the absence of it.

Iron Condor4 legscreditneutralA bull put and a bear call sold together — a credit collected for the stock staying inside a range, with both tails capped. Four legs, two of them protection.Straddle2 legsdebitneutralBuy a call and a put at the same strike. A bet on movement without a direction — and the most expensive way in the menu to make it.Strangle2 legsdebitneutralBuy an out-of-the-money call and put. A straddle's cheaper cousin — less to pay, and a wider move required before it pays anything.Short Straddle2 legscreditneutralguide onlySell a call and a put at the same strike. The largest credit in the menu, collected for the stock going nowhere — and an unlimited loss in both directions.Short Strangle2 legscreditneutralguide onlySell an out-of-the-money call and put. An iron condor with the wings removed — wider profit range than a short straddle, and still unlimited risk.Iron Butterfly4 legscreditneutralguide onlyA short straddle with wings. The iron condor's tighter cousin — a bigger credit for a narrower range, with both tails still capped.Long Butterfly3 legsdebitneutralguide onlyBuy one call, sell two above it, buy one above that. A cheap, precise bet that a stock lands on a particular price.

Single

One leg, and the other side of every trade a premium seller makes. Worth understanding even if you never buy one.

Long Call1 legdebitbullishBuy a call. The simplest bullish position — a known, limited cost for unlimited upside, and the other side of every call a wheel trader sells.Long Put1 legdebitbearishBuy a put. A bearish position or a hedge, with a defined cost — and the other side of every cash-secured put sold on this platform.Synthetic Long Stock2 legsmixedbullishguide onlyBuy a call and sell a put at the same strike. Behaves exactly like owning 100 shares — and is the clearest demonstration of put-call parity there is.

What is deliberately missing

Three structures a premium seller will eventually ask about are absent, and the reason is worth stating plainly rather than leaving as a gap: the Poor Man's Covered Call, calendar spreads and diagonal spreads.

All three hold legs at different expiries. When the near leg expires the far one still has months of time value left, so valuing the position needs an option-pricing model run at a future date. The payoff engine behind every diagram on this page is deliberately model-free — it computes what an option is worth at expiry, which is a fact rather than an estimate. Drawing these three with the same maths would produce a confident picture that is simply wrong.

They are on the list. Until the engine can price a leg forward in time, leaving them out is more honest than illustrating them incorrectly.

Reading any payoff diagram

The horizontal axis is where the stock finishes at expiry, not today's price. The vertical axis is profit or loss on the whole position.
Flat lines mean capped. A flat right-hand end says further upside adds nothing; a flat left-hand end says the loss stops there.
Where the line crosses zero is a break-even, marked with a dot. Some structures have two.
Dashed verticals are strikes. Every bend in a payoff line happens at a strike — that is what a strike is.
Collateral is not the maximum loss. It is what the broker holds, before the premium you received. On a credit spread it is the width, never the short strike.

Like everything in this guide, these are descriptions of structures and conditions — context for your own decisions, not instructions to trade.

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