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Forensic Analytics for the Option Seller

If you're running the wheel, or selling covered calls and cash-secured puts, you're probably tracking it in a spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet can add up premium. Can it highlight what's still open and keep days-to-expiration current without you touching it? Can it handle a roll, or an assignment, without a second set of formulas? Can it show the same trades by week, then month, then quarter, in one click? Can it tell you how much capital you actually had tied up each day — including the shares you were assigned — and what you earned on that? And after a year of wheeling the same dozen tickers, can it tell you which ones have really been paying you — and whether the put you're about to sell is richer or thinner than the last ten you sold on that name?

Most spreadsheets can handle the first question. Every one after that takes more formulas, more pivot tables, more weekend upkeep — time spent as a spreadsheet mechanic instead of a trader. Thetaphor does that work as you log trades, so your time goes into the decisions: which tickers to keep wheeling, where to put the next strike, and when the premium isn't worth the risk. Hover any of the questions above to see where Thetaphor answers it.

Most trade journals treat every position equally when summarizing a period. A one-contract speculative trade carries the same weight as a ten-contract anchor position. Thetaphor weights everything by capital deployed and days held, so the metrics that matter — realized yield, target yield, IV−RV Spread — reflect the true influence each trade had on your capital. A large position held for weeks moves your period figures. A small, quick trade barely does. That's the honest way to measure a theta strategy.

Thetaphor's Pre-Mortem analysis is built around two things that, tested against real closed-trade outcomes, actually correlate with results: how far your strike sits from the underlying relative to the expected move (your margin of safety), and whether the yield you're accepting that risk for is enough to justify the positioning. Trades that are both safely positioned and well-paid perform best. Trades that crowd the strike without enough yield to compensate perform worst. That combination — not any single number — is what the Pre-Mortem puts in front of you before you trade.

We got here by testing our own assumptions against outcomes rather than assuming a plausible-sounding metric works. An earlier version of Thetaphor leaned heavily on comparing implied volatility to historical volatility, on the theory that hot IV relative to recent price behavior means you're being paid a genuine premium for the risk. Backtested against real trade results, that comparison turned out to carry essentially no predictive power on its own — so it was pulled out of the places making that promise, rather than left in front of you because it sounded rigorous. Whether a trade works still comes down mostly to where the underlying moves, which nothing at entry reliably predicts. Positioning and yield discipline are what you actually control.

Separately, Thetaphor tracks the difference between implied volatility at entry and the volatility that actually played out over the life of the trade, per position and aggregated by reporting period. It's not a forecast — it's an after-the-fact check on whether the market's pricing of risk lined up with reality. A single trade's spread says little, but a persistent negative spread on the names and setups you trade is worth paying attention to.

Premium yield only tells part of the story. On the wheel, assignment is part of the plan — but shares that fall below your cost basis can sit for weeks with no call worth writing against them, and that capital is still committed to the strategy whether you're measuring it or not. Thetaphor counts it: assigned shares with no call written are kept in your capital figures, so your realized yield reflects what all of your capital is doing, not just the trades that stayed in the option contract. If you sold the put because you wanted the shares, mark the trade Strategic Delivery and they're treated like shares you bought outright instead.

In a rally, someone will tell you that you'd have made more just owning the shares. Sometimes they're right. Thetaphor checks: every closed short option is compared, in dollars, with simply holding the stock over the same days — per trade, per period with a running total, and per ticker. Selling options trades upside for income, so expect holding to win some rallies; the running total over many periods is the real answer.

Before you place a trade, Thetaphor's Pre-Mortem checker lets you run the full analysis on a potential position — strike positioning against expected move bands, delta, annualized yield, and the volatility pricing backdrop — so you can see the honest picture before you commit capital. It's not a recommendation engine. It's a quick, structured way to make sure you're not stepping in front of a steamroller because you needed to feel productive.

The ledger is your trade-by-trade record — every position from open through close or assignment, with customizable columns and a forensic detail view for each trade.

The reports page steps back to the bigger picture: weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly periods with capital-weighted metrics including Period IV−RV Spread, which shows whether the market paid you for the risk you took, and Options vs. Holding, which shows whether selling options beat simply holding the stock.

The assets page breaks your results down by ticker — shares held, options revenue, actual annualized return and Options vs. Holding for each name you trade.

The name combines θ (Theta), the Greek symbol for time decay, with the suffix -phor (to carry or bear). Thetaphor bears the weight of your data and your trade history, helping you understand exactly how time decay and volatility shape your long-term results.

Thetaphor is an analytical and educational tool. This site cannot be used for placing trades and does not interact with your brokerage. You enter the transaction information you want to track, providing the manual "Referee" oversight that automated platforms often ignore.

Lastly, your data belongs to you, and is never shared, aggregated, sold, or used for any purpose other than your own analysis (see the Legal tab for more details).

Contact Information

For questions or suggestions about this site, email me at: mjrice@thetaphor.com