Most portfolio tracking systems blur the line between unrealized paper losses and actual realized losses. This creates a distorted view of trading performance that can lead option sellers to make poor decisions based on incomplete information. When your dashboard shows a negative number, you need to know immediately whether that represents cash you've actually lost or simply temporary market fluctuations on positions you still hold.
The distinction matters enormously for option sellers running systematic strategies like the wheel. A stock trading below your purchase price represents an unrealized loss only. If you're collecting premium through covered calls while waiting for price recovery, that paper loss may never materialize as a realized loss. Your tracking system should reflect this reality rather than treating all negative numbers the same way.
Similarly, portfolio percentage calculations often include stocks you no longer own, artificially skewing concentration metrics. When positions get closed through assignment or sale, their weight should immediately drop to zero in portfolio calculations. Legacy tracking that continues including old positions creates false signals about diversification and risk exposure.
MyATMM's enhanced dashboard now separates profit and loss into two distinct categories that provide a much clearer picture of portfolio performance.
Unrealized P&L represents paper gains or losses on positions you currently hold. These numbers fluctuate daily as stock prices move but haven't been locked in through closing transactions.
For option sellers running the wheel strategy or similar approaches, unrealized losses are often temporary. Consider a stock purchased at $28 through put assignment that's currently trading at $19. The $9 per share unrealized loss only becomes real if you sell at that price. If you continue holding while collecting covered call premium, the eventual outcome could be neutral or even positive once premium collection is factored in.
Current Share Count: 1,000 shares
Average Purchase Price: $28.00 per share
Current Market Price: $19.45 per share
Total Capital Invested: $28,000
Current Market Value: $19,450
Unrealized Loss: -$8,550 (paper loss, not realized)
The unrealized loss number tells you how much you'd lose if you sold today at market price. But as an option seller, you're not planning to sell at market. You're planning to collect premium through covered calls until the position recovers or becomes profitable through premium accumulation alone.
Realized P&L represents actual profits or losses locked in through completed transactions. These numbers reflect cash that's actually left your account (losses) or been deposited (gains).
For option sellers, realized P&L primarily comes from option premium collection. Every covered call or cash-secured put that expires worthless represents realized gain—you keep the premium permanently. Stock sales also generate realized P&L, whether through assignment at a profit or voluntary liquidation.
Total Premium Collected (All Time): $2,959
Stock Sale Profits/Losses: $0 (no positions closed)
Total Realized Gain: $2,959
When combined with unrealized P&L, you get the complete picture: $2,959 in locked-in gains from premium collection, offset by $8,550 in paper losses on current holdings, for a net unrealized loss of $5,591. But that $5,591 number is misleading because it treats the $2,959 in premium as if it hasn't happened yet, when in reality that cash is already in your account.
The dashboard now shows overall P&L that correctly factors in both realized premium collection and unrealized position fluctuations. This combined view shows your true economic position across all activities.
The calculation works like this: Start with total premium collected (realized gains), add any realized stock profits, subtract any realized stock losses, then add unrealized gains or subtract unrealized losses on current positions. The result is your true net profit or loss across all trading activity.
The previous portfolio percentage calculation had a critical flaw: it included positions you no longer owned in the percentage allocation math. This created misleading concentration metrics that showed phantom portfolio weights for stocks you'd already exited.
Consider a scenario where you traded three stocks throughout the year: AAPL, NVAX, and CLOV. You closed the AAPL position months ago with a realized loss of $500. In the old calculation, that $500 loss still counted toward portfolio percentages, making it appear that AAPL represented a meaningful portion of your portfolio even though you owned zero shares.
This distortion affected diversification analysis. If NVAX and CLOV each represented $10,000 in current market value but the system was still counting $500 in AAPL "value" from the old loss, your percentages would show something like NVAX 48%, CLOV 48%, AAPL 4%. The reality: NVAX 50%, CLOV 50%, AAPL 0%.
Portfolio percentages now calculate based exclusively on current holdings. If you own zero shares of a stock, it represents 0% of your portfolio regardless of historical transactions or realized gains/losses from that position.
The calculation uses current market value of each position divided by total market value of all positions. No historical data pollution, no ghost positions, no phantom percentages.
NVAX: 400 shares × $11.00 = $4,400 market value
CLOV: 800 shares × $0.21 = $168 market value
Total Portfolio: $4,568 market value
NVAX Percentage: 96.3% ($4,400 / $4,568)
CLOV Percentage: 3.7% ($168 / $4,568)
Old Closed Positions: 0% (correctly excluded)
This corrected calculation immediately shows true concentration risk. In the example above, NVAX clearly dominates the portfolio at over 96%. That's actionable information for position sizing decisions going forward.
Selecting strike prices for covered calls and cash-secured puts involves balancing premium collection against assignment risk. The new weekly moving average indicator provides data-driven guidance for this critical decision.
The weekly average indicator shows the typical weekly price range for each stock over the past 12 months. This measurement reveals how much each underlying tends to move on a week-to-week basis under normal market conditions.
The calculation takes 52 weeks of historical data and determines the average absolute price change from one week's close to the next week's close. This produces a single number representing expected weekly movement.
NVAX: $7.35 weekly average movement
AAPL: $5.46 weekly average movement
GSAT: $0.10 weekly average movement
NVAX moves dramatically on a weekly basis, averaging over $7 per week in either direction. This high volatility creates substantial covered call and cash-secured put premiums but also higher assignment risk. GSAT barely moves at all, averaging just 10 cents per week. This creates much lower premiums but also much safer strike prices for avoiding assignment.
The weekly average indicator helps set strikes that balance income against assignment probability. The fundamental principle: strikes more than one weekly average away from current price have lower assignment risk than strikes within one weekly average.
Consider NVAX trading at $11.00 with a weekly average of $7.35. If you sell a covered call with an $18.00 strike, the stock would need to rally $7.00 in one week to reach that strike. Since the average weekly move is $7.35, there's meaningful assignment risk despite the strike being $7.00 out of the money.
Conversely, a $25.00 strike call sits $14.00 above current price. The stock would need to move nearly twice its average weekly range to reach that strike. Assignment risk is much lower, but premium will be minimal.
The weekly average indicator appears alongside cost basis information on both the analysis page and cost basis screen. This combination lets you make strike decisions based on both your breakeven requirements and realistic price movement expectations.
Current Price: $11.00
Cost Basis (Premium-Adjusted): $23.58
Weekly Average Movement: $7.35
Target Strike Range: $18.00 - $18.50
Reasoning: Current price ($11.00) plus one weekly average ($7.35) = $18.35. A strike in the $18.00-$18.50 range sits just above the expected one-week movement ceiling, providing premium collection with moderate assignment risk. The strike remains well below premium-adjusted cost basis ($23.58), so assignment would still result in realized loss, but continued premium collection may eventually recover the position.
The weekly average column is sortable on the analysis page, allowing you to quickly identify your most and least volatile positions. This helps with portfolio construction and position selection for new option selling.
Sorting from highest to lowest weekly average shows your most volatile underlyings—stocks that generate substantial premium but require careful strike selection. Sorting from lowest to highest shows conservative candidates with predictable price action where close-to-the-money strikes carry less assignment risk.
The real power of these enhancements emerges when used together as part of systematic option selling workflow.
Start each week by reviewing the dashboard's unrealized vs realized P&L. This immediately shows whether your positions are working:
This dashboard check takes 30 seconds but provides complete situational awareness about portfolio health.
When selecting which positions to trade and which strikes to use, navigate to the analysis page and reference the weekly average column alongside current price and cost basis:
This systematic approach removes emotion and guesswork from strike selection.
The cost basis screen now includes weekly average data directly in the position view. When managing existing positions, you can see at a glance how much room exists between current price and your average entry price, alongside how much the stock typically moves each week.
This combined view immediately reveals whether positions are likely to reach profitability through price movement alone or whether continued premium collection represents the only realistic path to recovery.
Current Price: $0.21
Cost Basis (Premium-Adjusted): $0.85
Weekly Average Movement: $0.21
Gap to Breakeven: $0.64 ($0.85 - $0.21)
Analysis: The stock would need to move $0.64, which represents 3 weeks of average movement (3 × $0.21 = $0.63). Price recovery to breakeven is theoretically possible but would require sustained upward movement significantly above typical weekly patterns. The more realistic path: continue collecting premium through covered calls until cumulative premium reduces cost basis to current price level.
These enhancements represent MyATMM's commitment to solving real problems that option sellers face in daily trading operations.
The unrealized vs realized P&L separation came directly from user feedback about misleading portfolio performance metrics. Option sellers need to see premium collection as realized gains separate from unrealized position fluctuations. The platform now delivers exactly that clarity.
The portfolio percentage fix addressed a calculation error that was creating false concentration readings. Users tracking multiple positions noticed that closed stocks still appeared in percentage allocations. This has been completely resolved with the new calculation methodology.
The analysis screen continues to grow as a central hub for trading decision-making. Initially focused on covered call and cash-secured put listing, it now incorporates weekly average movement data that transforms how strikes get selected.
Future enhancements to this screen will include additional volatility metrics, earnings date tracking, and ex-dividend date highlighting. The goal: make the analysis screen the single source of truth for all option selling decisions across your entire portfolio.
Adding weekly average data to the cost basis screen creates one-stop position management. You can view entry prices, current prices, premium-adjusted cost basis, and typical price movement all in one location without switching between different pages or external tools.
This concentration of critical data points reduces cognitive load and speeds up decision-making. When evaluating whether to roll a covered call or let it expire, you have immediate access to all relevant metrics for making that decision intelligently.
Successful option selling requires accurate tracking and quantitative decision-making. The enhancements to MyATMM's dashboard, portfolio percentage calculations, and analysis capabilities provide exactly the infrastructure systematic traders need.
Separating unrealized from realized P&L shows true performance rather than conflating paper fluctuations with locked-in results. This clarity prevents the psychological trap of treating temporary price declines as permanent losses while simultaneously making premium collection visible as the real economic gain it represents.
Fixed portfolio percentage calculations eliminate ghost positions from concentration analysis. You see actual current exposure rather than historical artifacts. This enables confident position sizing decisions based on reality rather than distorted metrics.
The weekly moving average indicator transforms strike selection from guesswork to quantitative analysis. Instead of hoping a strike is safe or wondering if premium justifies the risk, you have concrete data about typical price movement to guide those decisions.
When combined, these features create a complete framework for systematic option selling. Review dashboard P&L to understand performance, check portfolio percentages for concentration risk, use weekly average data to select strikes that balance premium against assignment probability, and track everything through detailed cost basis records.
The platform continues to evolve based on real trader needs. Each enhancement solves a specific problem faced in daily options trading operations. The result: infrastructure that makes systematic option selling practical, trackable, and profitable over long time horizons.
For option sellers running wheel strategies, covered call programs, or cash-secured put campaigns, these tracking and analysis capabilities separate successful systematic execution from random trading. Start with accurate data, make quantitative decisions, track every transaction, and let the compounding effects of consistent premium collection build wealth over time.
Options trading involves significant risk and is not suitable for all investors. Unrealized losses can become realized losses if positions are closed at a loss. Weekly average movement is based on historical data and does not predict future price action. Stocks can move significantly beyond their average weekly range.
Selling covered calls caps upside potential and does not protect against downside risk beyond the premium received. Cash-secured puts obligate you to purchase shares at the strike price regardless of how far the stock may decline. Portfolio tracking tools do not eliminate market risk or guarantee profitable trading outcomes.
This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or a recommendation to trade any specific security or implement any particular strategy.
MyATMM automatically separates unrealized and realized gains, calculates accurate portfolio percentages, and provides weekly average data for every position. Make data-driven decisions instead of guessing.
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