Screen for cash-secured puts

Picking a strike on one stock is a matter of reading its chain. Finding which stocks and funds to run a Wheel on is a search across the whole market. In this tutorial you’ll set up the Trade Screener to find cash-secured puts in the expiration and delta range you choose, leave out any with earnings before expiration, and open one in Trade analysis.

You don’t need an account; the screener always runs on the delayed feed. The screenshots follow one screen from start to finish.

1. Open the Trade Screener

Select Trade Screener in the left-hand menu.

The Options Trade Screener with its Strategy, Days out, Window, and Rank by controls and Add filter above the results.

2. Choose the strategy and expirations

  1. Set Strategy to Secured Put.
  2. Set Days out to 30 and Window to 15, to search expirations 30 to 45 days from today.
The screener set to Secured Put, searching expirations 30 to 45 days out.

3. Filter to the puts you’d sell

Open Add filter and add three. For each range filter, set its values and select the check mark to apply it.

  1. Delta, absolute, in the Greeks group: set it to Between 0.25 and 0.35, to keep puts near the strike you’d choose. It’s the size of the delta, so you don’t need to think about the sign.
  2. Open interest, in the Liquidity group: it starts at 500 or more, so the contracts already have holders. Apply it as it is.
  3. Earnings before expiration, in the Events group: it’s added set to No report, which leaves out puts that span an earnings report.
The screener with three filters applied: absolute delta between 0.25 and 0.35, open interest of at least 500, and no earnings report before expiration.

The earnings filter matters more than it looks. A put that spans an earnings report pays more because it carries the report’s risk; Check the calendar before you sell explains why. Either setting also leaves out underlyings with no scheduled report, which includes most funds, so remove it when you’re screening funds.

4. Rank and read the results

Set Rank by to Average annualized. The results show as cards.

Secured put results as cards, each showing the underlying and price, its average return with the annualized figure beside it, a payoff sketch, the credit, the risk, win in range, the leg, and its Greeks.

Look at the top results’ underlyings. The highest returns usually belong to the most volatile names, because implied volatility is what the premium pays for. A high return at the top of this list is the market charging for a larger risk, not a better deal. Compare each card’s return with its win in range and ask whether you’d be comfortable owning that underlying at the strike.

5. Open a result in Trade analysis

Select Analyze on a card. The trade opens in Trade analysis on delayed prices, with the screen’s date and forecast range.

One screener result opened in Trade analysis: the short put's credit, at risk, breakeven, and payoff chart.

From here, Analyze a cash-secured put walks through reading it.

What’s next