The Wheel strategy,
run like a professional desk.
WheelRunner syncs your Alpaca account, finds the ~0.30-delta strikes where the odds favor the seller, and flags the exact moment to roll.
Cost basis, premium collected, every roll — computed, never typed. On Elite, the engine runs the whole cycle for you.
Native Alpaca integration · Paper-trade first · Go live when you're ready
What is the Wheel Strategy?
A systematic three-step cycle that generates consistent monthly income from quality stocks you'd be happy to own.
Sell a Cash-Secured Put
Sell a put on AAPL at the $290 strike. You collect $325 premium instantly. If AAPL stays above $290 at expiry, you keep it all.
Collect premiumGet Assigned (Sometimes)
If AAPL drops below $290 at expiry, you buy 100 shares at $290. Your cost basis is $286.75 after premium — below market entry.
Own stock cheaplySell a Covered Call → Repeat
Now sell a covered call at $300. Collect more premium, set a profitable exit. When it expires or fills — restart the cycle.
Repeat every monthThe old way of running it
Your spreadsheet doesn't know your put's delta just doubled.
Every wheel trader has the same second job: bookkeeper. Log the fill. Adjust the basis. Recompute the annualized return. And the spreadsheet still gets it wrong — because a wheel isn't rows, it's chains. One CSP rolled twice and assigned isn't four trades; it's one position with one true cost basis, and one misplaced formula quietly poisons every number downstream.
But the math errors aren't what costs you money. The silence is. A spreadsheet won't tell you your short put's delta doubled overnight — the single strongest roll signal in the wheel playbook. It won't warn you that earnings land inside your expiry. It won't notice you've entered the gamma zone.
The WheelRunner Way
The full Wheel lifecycle, in one dashboard.
From first scan to final journal entry — every stage of the strategy computed, monitored, and recorded.
Step 1 · Find the Trade
Scanner — your daily opportunity list
Stop scrolling option chains on weekends. Every morning the engine scans your watchlist plus a curated list of 131 wheel-suitable stocks, picks the optimal strike at your delta target on each, and ranks the candidates by a weighted score. Premium richness is graded the way a desk grades it — implied vs. realized volatility, not a raw yield chase. Earnings ahead, low quality grade, thin open interest or a wide spread, ATR-too-close — all flagged before you click, and an unknown earnings date fails safe as a caution, never a green light. Elite users see the full ranked list with the engine's reasoning chain on each candidate. One glance, ready to execute.
Scanned today at 10:42 AM | 3 watchlist + 2 broader
| Symbol | Price | IV | Delta | Strike | ExpiryDTE | Bid / Ask | Ann. Ret. | Earnings | Quality | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | $298.11 | 24% | 0.28 | $290.00 | Aug 14 32d | $4.55/$4.70 | 17.9% | Jul 30 17d | A | Good✓ Auto-open | Sell CSP |
| AMZN | $248.36 | 31% | 0.28 | $235.00 | Aug 14 32d | $4.40/$4.62 | 21.4% | Aug 6 24d | A | Good✗ exceeds deployable | Sell CSP |
| KO | $80.03 | 15% | 0.24 | $77.50 | Aug 14 32d | $0.62/$0.70 | 9.1% | > 90d | A | Good✗ premium-too-lean | Sell CSP |
| TSLA | $407.76 | 52% | — | — | — | — | — | Jul 22 9d | B | Caution Earnings inside the expiry window — skipped |
Delta from the live options feed | Bid / Ask from Alpaca | Quality from Finnhub fundamentals
Step 2 · Manage & Act
Positions — a live recommendation on every row
Every open CSP, covered call, and assigned lot in one view — synced from Alpaca, never typed. The engine watches each position continuously: delta doubling, gamma-zone DTE, profit targets, hard stops, earnings inside the expiry window, an ex-dividend date that puts a covered call at early-assignment risk. It pre-computes the best roll candidate with net credit, prints the hold-vs-close expected value so you see the math behind every call, and puts one-click Roll / Close right next to the position. Above it all sits the desk view: beta-weighted portfolio delta, net gamma and theta, and a correlation advisory that flags when two of your tickers are secretly the same bet. On Elite, the engine can take these actions itself — inside rules you set.
Premium +$625.00 | basis $218.75/sh if assigned | opened Jul 2
Spot $248.36 | 9.4% above strike | entry $6.25 → now $4.60
Holding is +$186 EV better than closing
wins 84% of the time
Δ 0.21 | Θ +$12.00/day | Γ 0.008 | ν $24/IV pt
Assigned Jun 27 | cost $14,400
Entry $144.00 → now $147.04 | value $14,704
Held 16d | long-term gains in 349d
Premium +$410.00 | basis $286.75/sh all-in | opened Jul 6
Spot $295.20 | 1.6% below strike | entry $4.10 → now $2.95
Holding is +$52 EV better than closing
wins 76% of the time
Δ 0.28 | Θ +$9.00/day | Γ 0.011 | ν $19/IV pt
Step 3 · Review & Improve
Journal — every trade tracked as a chain, not rows
Every fill auto-populates the journal, and rolled legs stay linked into one cycle — chain root to terminal close. Cycle-level Win Rate and Profit Factor mean a roll never flatters or hides your real performance (the right way to measure a wheel). Reconciled against Alpaca four times: on submit, on poll, on cron, and on every journal load. Phantom rows auto-detected, never auto-deleted.
Total P&L
+$2,847
12 finished cycles
Win rate
83%
10 of 12 cycles
Profit factor
3.4×
wins ÷ losses
Avg duration
21d
cycle open → close
Avg winner
+$318
per winning cycle
Avg loser
−$186
per losing cycle
Best trade
+$412
NVDA
Worst trade
−$186
AMZN
$77.5 P | May 8 | closed Jul 10, 2026
Realized P&L
+$405
from $155.00 premium
Step 4 · Measure the Edge
Performance — measure the strategy, not just the trades
Most option dashboards report leg-level P&L and stop there. Wheel performance has to be measured at the cycle level (chain root to terminal close), and it has to surface concentration, discipline, and capital efficiency together. The Performance lens computes a Wheel Health Score — a 0-100 composite of Win Rate, Profit Factor, annualised yield, discipline, and concentration. A risk-adjusted lens reports Sharpe, Sortino, volatility and max drawdown off your real daily equity curve — the numbers a desk is judged on — plus theta attribution: how much of your P&L was earned decay versus market luck. The Roll Counterfactual answers a question no other wheel tool answers: did rolling actually help versus letting it ride? Equity curve, monthly trend, per-ticker breakdown — every angle on whether your strategy is working.
Strategy summary | cycle-level
Cycles
23
Realized P&L
+$2,847
Realized Yield
+18.2%
Expectancy
+$124
Wheel Health Score
Working
77
of 100
Risk-adjusted performance
How much return you earned for the risk you carried — the desk view that raw P&L can't show.
Sharpe
1.8
return / total vol
Sortino
2.6
return / downside vol
Ann. return
+18.2%
geometric
Ann. vol
9.4%
of equity
Max drawdown
−4.2%
peak to trough
Calmar
4.3
return / max DD
23 daily equity snapshots | risk-free = 0, annualized √252. Firms up as more days accrue.
Roll counterfactual
Actual (rolled)
+$1,012
Hypothetical (held)
+$585
Roll value
+$427
Rolling earned you money vs holding to expiry.
12 of 14 rolled cycles analysed (others missing price history)
Elite Automation
Six tiers that run the Wheel while you sleep.
Top traders do three things differently: exit winners on time, roll losers without panic, and stay out of garbage-hour openings. WheelRunner's six automation tiers do all three — plus three more — without you watching the chart.
Close winners
Buys back shorts the moment your profit target hits. Locks in every gain automatically.
Auto-CC
After assignment, writes a covered call at your configured delta. Restarts the cycle without delay.
Roll-stop
Rolls shorts for credit when they breach the hard stop. Defends time and basis.
Auto-open
Picks new CSPs from the scanner, respecting your rules and reserve. Optional, off by default.
Roll-gamma
Refreshes shorts in the final 21 DTE — before gamma risk spikes.
Stock-defense
Watches assigned share lots for stop or take-profit. Alerts or exits per your config.
Plus the safety layer
Three guardrails that make the automation safe to trust.
Seven safety halts + a VIX regime
Kill switch · VIX-extreme · daily loss limit · weekly loss limit · max-trades-per-day · time window · paused state. Trip any one and every tier stops. On top, a VIX regime sizes new entries down as fear rises and pauses them entirely in a shock — the engine refuses to trade when something is structurally off.
30-day dry-run + audit log
Every new tier starts in dry-run for 30 days. The engine logs every decision (placed / blocked / skipped) with the rule that fired it — in plain English, not error codes. Filter, search, export to CSV. Nothing happens silently.
Notifications & digests
Five per-event toggles (auto-open / auto-close / roll / walker-floor / engine-halt) plus daily and weekly digest emails. The limit walker works unfilled orders toward a fill at your urgency — Patient, Balanced, or Aggressive — and never concedes past your economics; you only get pinged when something material happens.
Available on the Elite tier.
Your brokerage.
Your money.
Your control.
WheelRunner never sees your Alpaca password. Brokerage credentials are held server-side and encrypted with AES-256-GCM authenticated encryption; OAuth is our submitted integration target. You can revoke access in one click from Settings or directly from your Alpaca dashboard.
- Server-side credentials only — Alpaca password never stored or transmitted
- AES-256-GCM encryption at rest with per-row keys
- Trade-only access — no withdrawal or transfer permissions ever requested
- Credentials never sent to your browser
- Revoke access instantly from Settings or Alpaca
Your tokens are useless if we're ever breached
AES-256 encryption at rest — decrypted only in server memory, never stored in plain text
We can never touch your funds — not even accidentally
Trade-only API access — zero withdrawal or transfer permissions ever requested
Your credentials never reach your browser
Tokens stay server-side only — never in localStorage, cookies, or API responses
All data in transit is fully encrypted
TLS 1.3 enforced everywhere — tokens never appear in URLs or referrer headers
Your account data is isolated from every other user
Supabase Row Level Security — queries are scoped to your user ID at the database layer
Three presets. One click to start.
Choose a pre-screened portfolio preset or build your own watchlist. Every ticker is filtered for IV, liquidity, and conviction score.
Conservative
Low riskHigh-quality dividend payers, low IV, steady premium.
Balanced
Moderate riskModerate IV with strong fundamentals and decent liquidity.
Growth
Higher riskHigher IV yields bigger premiums — with more assignment risk.
Paper-first
Practice the full strategy risk-free before committing a dollar. Every account starts in paper mode.
Brokerage-isolated
Your funds never leave your Alpaca account. WheelRunner connects via secure server-side credentials and never holds money.
Open audit trail
Every automated decision is logged with the rule that triggered it. Override, disable, or review anytime.
One good roll pays for the year.
A single well-timed CSP collects $150–$450 in premium — plans run $0–$129/mo. Every plan shares the same wheel infrastructure; the ladder is about how much you do yourself versus letting the engine handle.
Free
$0Try it
Paper-trade the full strategy on a free Alpaca account. Scanner, chain-aware position cards, journal and email alerts all included — simulated money, real workflow.
Starter
$29/moDisciplined manual
Live trading on Alpaca. Discovery scan reaches beyond your own watchlist. Numeric control over every risk rule. You execute every trade.
Pro
$69/moSerious manual
A trading desk: multi-account switching, stress testing, Sharpe/Sortino lens, smart order walker, tax export, Wheel Health Score. Still you-in-the-loop.
Elite
$129/moHands-off
Everything in Pro + six automation tiers run the cycle for you. Engine logs every decision; you stay in control.
Common questions
Is this safe? What happens to my money?
Do I need options experience to start?
What brokers are supported?
Can I lose money?
How is this different from a robo-advisor?
Is WheelRunner an investment adviser?
How does annual billing work?
What happens when I upgrade from Free to Starter?
The market pays option sellers for discipline.
Bring the discipline machine.
Paper-trade the full wheel free — scanner, signals, journal, everything. Connect Alpaca when you're ready to go live. Upgrade to hands-off when you trust it.
Start Free — No Card, No SpreadsheetSet up in 60 seconds · Works with any Alpaca account · Free tier is free forever