Options Screener Tutorial: A 5-Minute Beginner Overview

Why use an options screener?

There are roughly 6,000 optionable U.S. stocks and each one has dozens of strikes and expirations. That's hundreds of thousands of contracts to consider. An options screener does the boring math for you: it scans every contract, applies your rules, and returns just the handful worth a serious look.

The Wheel Strategy Options screener is purpose-built for two trades:

• Cash-secured puts (CSPs) — get paid to potentially buy a stock you want.
• Covered calls (CCs) — get paid to potentially sell shares you already own.

If you've ever stared at an options chain wondering "which strike, which expiration?", this tool replaces that guesswork with a checklist.

The three things you'll touch

Every screener session uses the same three building blocks:

You can mix all three. A common workflow is preset → ticker pill → tweak one filter.

A 60-second walkthrough

1. Pick a screener. Go to the Cash Secured Put screener or the Covered Call screener.
2. Apply a preset. Try "High Yield" or "Earnings Safe" from the dropdown. The table refreshes in a second.
3. Add a ticker (optional). Type a symbol in the search box — useful when you already own shares for covered calls.
4. Sort the table. Click the column header for Yield, Premium, or Rating to surface the strongest contracts at the top.
5. Open a contract. Click any row to see the contract detail snapshot, payoff, and a one-click broker link.

That's it. Every other tutorial in this guide just zooms in on one filter or one preset so you understand exactly what each knob is doing.

Filters vs. presets — when to use which

Use a preset when:

• You're new and want a sane starting point.
• You only have 5 minutes and want a "good enough" trade.
• You want to compare your manual filters against a baseline.

Use raw filters when:

• You have a specific thesis (e.g., "30-delta puts on large caps with no earnings this month").
• You want to fine-tune what the preset gave you.
• You're saving a screen you'll reuse weekly.

You can also start with a preset and then adjust filters on top of it. The preset is just a starting point, not a lock.

How the results table works

Each row is a single option contract — one strike, one expiration, on one stock. Key columns:

• Rating — our 0-100 contract score combining yield, liquidity, IV, and downside cushion.
• Premium — the credit you'll receive (per contract = 100 shares).
• Yield % — premium as a percent of the cash secured (puts) or shares' notional (calls).
• Delta — rough probability the option ends in the money.
• Cushion — how far the stock can move before you're in trouble.
• Earnings — date of next earnings report (red flag if it's inside your DTE).

You can show or hide any column from the column picker. Settings stick across sessions.

The "save it once, reuse it forever" workflow

Once you have a filter combo you like, click Save Screener, give it a name (e.g., "My 30-delta CSPs"), and it appears in the dropdown. Many traders set up:

• One conservative screen (low delta, large cap, no earnings)
• One income screen (high yield, weekly DTE)
• One opportunistic screen (high IV, recent pullback)

…and rotate through them on Monday morning.

Where to go next

Pick the path that matches what you want to do today:

• "I want to understand each filter." Start with the Delta filter tutorial, the most important single dial.
• "Just show me ready-made screens." Jump to the High IV preset tutorial — our most popular starting point.
• "I want a safe first trade." Read the Earnings Safe preset tutorial.