The continuous wheel strategy becomes exponentially more powerful when you play both sides simultaneously. Instead of waiting for one side to complete before opening the other, you can sell covered calls on shares you already own while simultaneously selling cash-secured puts to acquire more shares. This bilateral approach doubles your premium collection opportunities and guarantees at least one winning side since the stock can only move in one direction.
In just ten minutes at market open, you can execute both transactions and collect substantial weekly premium. The real demonstration in this article shows $200 collected from MRVL (Marvell Technology Inc) through a single covered call and one cash-secured put—both filled within minutes of market open at prices better than the limit orders placed.
Beyond the quick premium collection, the continuous wheel strategy delivers a critical advantage: dollar cost averaging. As the stock price moves, put assignments accumulate shares at progressively lower prices in downtrends, reducing your overall cost basis. This allows you to sell options at-the-money or close to it, maximizing premium collection on stocks you genuinely want to own.
This demonstration uses a Think-Or-Swim (TOS) paper trading account to show the complete workflow from order placement through transaction recording. While using demo funds, the market fills and pricing are identical to live trading, providing realistic experience.
Before market open, two positions were identified for the upcoming week expiring February 17th:
| Position Type | Strike | Limit Order | Actual Fill | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash-Secured Put | $44.50 (ATM) | $1.33 | $1.34 | $134 |
| Covered Call | $46.50 | $0.65 | $0.70 | $70 |
| Total Premium Collected | $204 | |||
The cash-secured put was placed at-the-money based on MRVL's closing price around $44.50. This maximizes premium collection while accepting assignment at a price level established by recent market action. The covered call strike of $46.50 was determined by the current cost basis—ensuring any assignment results in profit on the shares sold.
At market open (9:30 AM ET), both limit orders filled within minutes:
Both positions filled at prices superior to the limit orders placed. This demonstrates the value of placing limit orders at reasonable mid-points rather than market orders. The market makers provided price improvement, adding an extra $6 to the premium collected ($1 on the put, $5 on the call).
Total time from market open to both positions filled: approximately 5 minutes. Total premium collected: $204. This represents over $200 in weekly income established in less than ten minutes of active work.
The account statement shows complete transaction details including fees:
Credit: $134.00 (100 shares × $1.34)
Commission: Included in demo account (varies by broker)
Regulatory Fees: Minimal (typically $0.02-0.05)
Net Credit: ~$133.95
Buying Power Required: $4,450 (100 shares × $44.50 strike)
Credit: $70.00 (100 shares × $0.70)
Commission: Included in demo account
Regulatory Fees: Minimal
Net Credit: ~$69.95
Shares Covered: 100 shares already owned
The cash-secured put requires substantial buying power ($4,450) since you must be prepared to purchase 100 shares at the strike price if assigned. The covered call requires no additional buying power since you already own the shares being covered.
Once transactions execute in your brokerage account, they must be logged accurately in MyATMM to maintain correct cost basis tracking and premium collection records. The platform provides a streamlined workflow specifically designed for option sellers.
From the MyATMM dashboard, navigate to the cost basis page and filter to show only your MRVL positions. This isolates all transactions for this ticker, making it easy to add new positions without distraction from other holdings.
For each new option sold, create a draft position with the following details:
The draft position feature allows you to enter all details for both options before saving. This prevents errors and gives you a chance to review the data before committing it to your permanent transaction history.
For the covered call sold in this example:
Action: Sell to Open
Type: Call
Contracts: 1
Strike: $46.50
Expiration: February 17, 2023
Premium Per Share: $0.70
Total Premium: $70.00
The strike price of $46.50 was determined by referencing the current cost basis display on MyATMM. By selecting a strike at or above your cost basis, you ensure any assignment results in a profitable share sale. This is a fundamental principle of covered call selling within the wheel strategy.
Before saving the covered call, add the second position—the cash-secured put:
Action: Sell to Open
Type: Put
Contracts: 1
Strike: $44.50
Expiration: February 17, 2023
Premium Per Share: $1.34
Total Premium: $134.00
The $44.50 strike represents the at-the-money put when the order was placed. As noted in the transaction walkthrough, MRVL closed around $44.50, making this the ATM strike. By the time the put was filled at 9:34 AM, MRVL had moved to approximately $45.60, meaning the put was already out-of-the-money—a favorable development that reduces assignment probability while keeping the full premium.
After entering details for both positions, save each one. MyATMM automatically categorizes them:
You can expand or collapse these groups to view active positions. This organization keeps your transaction history clean and makes it easy to see what positions are currently open versus closed.
After saving both draft positions, they need to be moved to the permanent transaction history. MyATMM provides a helper button that auto-fills transaction details based on the position data you entered. This saves time and reduces errors from manual typing.
For each position, click the helper button which populates:
You can then add optional details like commission and fees. In the demo account, these are typically not tracked, but in live accounts, entering exact commission and fee data ensures your account balance reconciliation remains accurate.
After recording both transactions to history, MyATMM updates all position metrics:
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Premium Collected (MRVL) | $809 | $1,013 | +$204 |
| Total Premium (Account-Wide) | $349 | $553 | +$204 |
| Premium-Adjusted Cost Basis | $36.93 | $36.37 | -$0.56 |
The premium-adjusted cost basis decreased by $0.56 per share as a result of the $204 in premium collected. This demonstrates the cumulative power of the wheel strategy—every week's premium collection drives your effective cost basis lower, creating more favorable strike price opportunities for future trades.
The position summary shows the cost basis continuing to decline even as total premium collected grows. In the example, over $1,013 in premium has been collected on this MRVL position, driving the premium-adjusted cost basis from the original purchase prices down to $36.37. This makes the continuous wheel strategy a true income-compounding machine.
After recording the week's transactions, the MyATMM dashboard provides portfolio-wide visibility into premium collection and account performance. This high-level view helps you track strategy effectiveness across all positions and time periods.
In the example, the dashboard showed February premium collection at approximately $500—and the month was only halfway complete. The addition of $204 from the MRVL transactions brought the monthly total to around $550, putting the trader on pace for potentially $1,000+ by month end.
This monthly tracking serves multiple purposes:
The trader wisely noted that projecting $1,000 for the month would depend on stock price movements and available premium opportunities. This realistic assessment prevents over-confidence while acknowledging the strong pace of premium collection so far.
One of the most valuable MyATMM features is automatic account balance reconciliation. The platform calculates what your account balance should be based on all recorded transactions, then displays this next to your actual brokerage balance. These should match exactly.
In the demonstration, both the calculated and actual balances matched, confirming that every transaction had been properly recorded with no missing data. This reconciliation feature catches errors immediately before they compound into major discrepancies.
The dashboard displays summary data for all tracked tickers, showing:
This consolidated view makes it easy to identify which positions are performing well, which might need adjustment, and where to focus future premium collection efforts.
Playing both sides of the options market simultaneously—selling covered calls on owned shares while selling cash-secured puts to acquire more shares—creates mathematical advantages that single-side strategies cannot achieve.
The most fundamental advantage: the stock can only move in one direction. This guarantees favorable outcomes on at least one of your two positions:
Unlike directional trading where you profit only if correct about market direction, bilateral option selling profits regardless of direction. You're not predicting movement; you're collecting payment for accepting either outcome.
As noted in the video demonstration, the bilateral strategy provides a natural dollar cost averaging mechanism. When the stock price trends downward, cash-secured puts at progressively lower strikes get assigned, accumulating shares at better prices.
This dollar cost averaging delivers two benefits:
In the MRVL example, the premium-adjusted cost basis had declined to $36.37 through systematic premium collection. This allows selling calls at strikes in the high $30s or low $40s (depending on current price) while still collecting meaningful premium, even if the stock has declined from initial purchase levels.
Each put assignment adds 100 shares to your position. More shares mean more covered call contracts available to sell in subsequent weeks. This creates a compounding income effect:
The premium per contract doesn't need to increase for your total income to grow. Simply having more contracts available through larger share positions expands your weekly cashflow proportionally.
By actively trading both sides, you maintain engagement with the position through all market conditions. In bull markets, covered calls generate income and potentially profitable assignments. In bear markets, cash-secured puts accumulate shares at improving prices while collecting premium. In sideways markets, both sides collect premium as options expire worthless.
This active engagement across market environments creates more consistent income than strategies that only work in specific market conditions.
Selecting appropriate strikes for both covered calls and cash-secured puts requires balancing premium collection with assignment probability and cost basis considerations.
The fundamental rule for covered call strikes: sell at or above your cost basis to ensure profitable assignment. In the MRVL example, the covered call was sold at $46.50 because that matched the current cost basis displayed in MyATMM.
This approach delivers two advantages:
As your premium-adjusted cost basis declines through ongoing premium collection, you gain flexibility to sell calls at lower strikes (closer to at-the-money) while still maintaining profitable assignment scenarios. This access to higher-premium strikes compounds your income over time.
For cash-secured puts, at-the-money strikes typically offer optimal premium-to-risk ratios. In the demonstration, the $44.50 put was selected because MRVL was trading around $44.50 when the order was placed.
At-the-money strikes provide:
If assigned on an ATM put, you're purchasing shares at a price recently confirmed by market trading. This isn't catching a falling knife; it's accepting shares at established support levels while collecting premium for doing so.
Both positions in the example used weekly expirations (February 17th, five days from execution). Weekly expirations offer specific advantages:
The trade-off is smaller absolute premium per contract. A weekly option might collect $70 while a monthly collects $200. However, four weekly trades collecting $70 each total $280—exceeding the single monthly trade. Plus, you have four chances to adjust rather than being locked into one strike for a month.
Higher premium typically correlates with higher assignment probability. Selling far out-of-the-money options generates little premium but rarely results in assignment. Selling deep in-the-money options generates substantial premium but almost guarantees assignment.
For the continuous wheel strategy, moderate assignment probability is actually desirable:
At-the-money and slightly out-of-the-money strikes provide the optimal balance—meaningful premium with acceptable assignment probabilities that advance the overall wheel strategy.
The demonstration showcased several MyATMM features specifically designed to support continuous wheel strategy execution. These tools transform complex multi-week option tracking into manageable systematic workflows.
When deciding what covered call strike to sell, MyATMM displays your current cost basis directly on the position page. This real-time reference eliminates guesswork about profitable strike selection. Simply choose a strike at or above the displayed cost basis, and you know assignment will result in profitable share sales.
The platform shows both simple cost basis (average purchase price) and premium-adjusted cost basis (after accounting for collected premiums). Using the premium-adjusted figure provides a more accurate picture of your true breakeven point.
The draft position feature allows you to enter option details before committing them to permanent history. This staging area lets you:
Once saved, draft positions automatically categorize into Calls or Puts groups, keeping your active positions organized and visible.
When moving a draft position to permanent transaction history, the helper button auto-fills all transaction details based on the position data you entered. This eliminates repetitive typing and reduces data entry errors.
The auto-filled transaction includes:
You can then add commissions and fees if tracking those details. This optional precision ensures your account balance reconciliation remains accurate down to the penny.
MyATMM now includes fields for commissions and fees on every transaction. This recent addition allows precise account balance tracking by automatically adding or subtracting these costs from your premium calculations.
For brokers charging per-contract commissions (common with options), entering exact commission data ensures your transaction history matches your brokerage statements perfectly. The platform automatically calculates whether commissions should be added (for buy transactions) or subtracted (for sell transactions) from your account balance.
After recording transactions, MyATMM instantly recalculates all position and account-level metrics:
These instant updates provide immediate feedback on how each week's trades impact your overall position, reinforcing the cumulative effect of consistent premium collection.
The platform organizes positions into collapsible groups (Calls, Puts, Shares, etc.), making it easy to see how many active positions you have in each category without cluttering the interface with expanded details.
The counter next to each group increments or decrements as you add or close positions, giving at-a-glance visibility into your current exposure.
The $204 weekly premium from a single ticker demonstrates meaningful income, but the strategy scales effectively across multiple underlyings and larger position sizes.
Rather than concentrating all capital in one stock, experienced wheel traders typically run the strategy on 3-10 different underlyings simultaneously. This diversification provides several benefits:
MyATMM's free tier supports tracking up to 3 tickers, making it easy to start with diversified wheel strategy execution without subscription costs.
The demonstration showed 1 covered call contract and 1 cash-secured put contract. As capital grows, you can scale to 5, 10, or more contracts per side:
The workflow remains identical regardless of contract count. You're executing the same strategy at larger scale, not learning new tactics. This scalability means the skills developed managing small positions transfer directly to managing substantial portfolios.
Consistent weekly execution creates powerful compounding over time. If you collect $200 weekly across 52 weeks, that's $10,400 annually from a single ticker. With 5 tickers at that rate, you generate $52,000 in annual premium.
More importantly, the premium collected each week reduces your cost basis, creating better strike opportunities for subsequent weeks. This compounding means year two typically generates higher absolute premium than year one even with the same position sizes, simply because your improved cost basis allows more aggressive (higher-premium) strike selection.
Rather than deploying all capital upfront, let the strategy build positions organically through put assignments. Start with modest positions (1-2 contracts per ticker), and allow assignments to gradually expand your holdings.
This measured growth approach:
In the example, the trader had accumulated shares through multiple assignments over time, not through one large purchase. This gradual accumulation represents the strategy working as designed.
The continuous wheel strategy delivers its most powerful results when you play both sides simultaneously. Selling covered calls on owned shares while selling cash-secured puts to acquire more shares creates guaranteed favorable outcomes—the stock can only move in one direction, ensuring at least one side wins while both sides collect premium.
The real demonstration showed $204 collected in approximately 10 minutes of active work at market open. Both orders filled at prices superior to limit orders placed, demonstrating that patient limit orders often receive price improvement versus aggressive market orders. Total time from login to fully logged transactions: under 15 minutes for complete weekly setup.
MyATMM provides the essential infrastructure for managing bilateral option strategies systematically. Draft positions prevent errors, helper buttons eliminate repetitive data entry, automatic metric updates show immediate impact, and cost basis displays guide strike selection. Without accurate tracking, you're guessing at your true position status. With systematic tracking, you know exactly where you stand week after week.
The bilateral approach delivers natural dollar cost averaging as put assignments accumulate shares at progressively lower prices during downtrends. This averaging reduces overall cost basis, creating access to more attractive (higher-premium) strike prices for future covered calls. The strategy becomes self-reinforcing—each week's premium collection improves next week's opportunities.
Start with manageable position sizes—1-2 contracts per ticker on 2-3 different underlyings. Execute the same systematic workflow weekly: review brokerage activity, log all transactions accurately in MyATMM, analyze updated position metrics, and set up next week's covered calls and cash-secured puts. This 15-minute weekly routine generates consistent income across all market environments.
The strategy scales elegantly from small accounts to substantial portfolios without changing the fundamental workflow. Whether trading 1 contract or 100 contracts, the process remains identical. This scalability means skills developed with small positions transfer directly to managing large portfolios, creating a clear path from beginner to advanced execution.
Stop waiting for one side of the wheel to complete before playing the other. Start playing both sides simultaneously, doubling your premium opportunities while guaranteeing at least one favorable outcome every week. The bilateral continuous wheel strategy transforms option selling from sequential execution into parallel income generation.
Options trading involves significant risk and is not suitable for all investors. Selling cash-secured puts obligates you to purchase shares at the strike price if assigned, potentially resulting in losses if the stock declines substantially. Covered calls cap upside potential and provide only limited downside protection equal to the premium received.
The bilateral strategy does not eliminate market risk or ensure profitability. Both sides of the trade can result in losses if the underlying stock experiences significant adverse price movement. Past premium collection does not guarantee future income.
The demonstration used a paper trading account with simulated funds. Real trading results may differ due to slippage, commissions, market conditions, and execution quality. This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice.
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