Selling options for income
There are two honest ways to get paid for selling options. Most tools only help you find one.
Sell a covered call and you collect income on stock you already own. Sell a cash-secured put and you collect income on cash you've set aside, on a stock you'd be glad to buy at a lower price. Both are ways of being paid for the time and uncertainty other investors are paying to escape, and both stall on the same wall: the research doesn't scale past the handful of tickers you can watch by hand. FITools scans the whole market for both moves and runs the math on each, so the question stops being “which few names can I check?” and becomes “which trade is actually worth it right now?”
A research and monitoring tool for established investors. The decisions stay yours, and the two moves are never chained together.
What FITools actually does, for both moves
It scans the whole market for both, not the few names you can track by hand.
For covered calls, FITools lists candidates against the stocks you already hold. For cash-secured puts, it lists candidates against the stocks you'd be willing to buy with cash you've set aside. Either way you're choosing from the full universe of optionable stocks scanned in seconds, not the three to five names you had time to research manually.
It shows you what each trade is paying, as arithmetic you can re-run.
A covered call paying $0.50 on 100 shares at a $50 strike is $50 of premium against $5,000 of stock (1% for that expiration period). A cash-secured put paying $0.50 at the same $50 strike is $50 of premium against $5,000 of cash you've set aside to buy at $50 if assigned (the same 1% mechanic, on collateral that's cash instead of shares). FITools puts the inputs and the math in front of you for each; the percentage is the output of numbers you can see, not a forecast.
It keeps the two decisions separate, and shows the volatility behind each premium.
For each candidate, FITools surfaces implied volatility as one of the inputs you can filter and weigh — the premium a contract pays is compensation for that volatility, put in front of you rather than left buried in the chain. A call on one stock and a put on another are evaluated on their own merits; nothing in the tool chains a put into a call on the same name or pushes you to keep selling on a ticker you'd no longer choose.
Two moves, judged independently, not a loop you run on autopilot
There's a popular strategy called the Wheel that strings these two moves together: sell puts on a stock until you're assigned, then sell calls until the shares are called away, then start over on the same name. It sounds tidy. In practice it quietly drops the one discipline that makes selling options sane: the willingness to look at a position fresh and ask whether you'd still buy or sell it today. Run on a loop, it keeps you selling on a ticker long after the reason to own it is gone.
FITools treats covered calls and cash-secured puts as two separate decisions, each evaluated on the merits at the moment you'd make it. A put on cash you've set aside is a way to get paid to set a buy order at a price you'd happily own. A call on shares you hold is a way to get paid to set a sell order at a price you'd happily sell. They share a tool and a discipline; they are not two halves of one machine you switch on and stop thinking.
Already focused on covered calls?
If your portfolio is mostly individual stocks you already hold and your real question is how to earn income on stocks you'd be content to sell at the right price, covered calls are the move and you don't need the broader comparison. The page built for exactly that problem (scanning your holdings, sizing the trade-off, catching the roll) is covered calls on the stocks you own. Start there; this page is for when you want both moves on the table.
Who this is for — and who it isn't, yet
FITools is for the established, responsible investor with capital and discipline who wants to sell options for income and judge each trade themselves: someone who either holds individual stocks, has cash set aside to buy stocks they'd want, or both.
A few readers are honestly better served elsewhere right now:
- If you're new to selling options, learn the mechanics by hand first. The free FITools handbook covers both covered calls and cash-secured puts from the ground up, and FITools is the tool for after you understand what you're doing, not training wheels.
- If you want signals or picks to follow, this isn't the tool. FITools surfaces the inputs (premium, volatility, strike, expiration, collateral) so you decide. It hands you no list to act on blindly.
- If the cost of a premium research tool would be a meaningful expense relative to your portfolio, it isn't for you yet, and that's a straight fit answer. The tool earns its place for investors whose holdings or set-aside cash are large enough that better options-selling decisions clearly outweigh what it costs.
One of each, start to finish
A covered call. You hold 100 shares trading at $50 ($5,000 of stock you'd be content to sell at the right price). FITools surfaces a one-month $52.50 call paying $0.60, its implied volatility shown next to the premium so you can judge what you're being paid for. You collect $60 against $5,000 of collateral: 1.2% for that period. If the stock stays under $52.50, the call expires and you keep the shares and the $60. If it closes higher, the shares are called away at $52.50: you keep the $60 and the gain up to the strike, and you give up the gain above it. That foregone upside is part of the result.
A cash-secured put. Separately (a different stock, a different decision) you've set aside $4,500 in cash to buy a stock you'd be glad to own at $45. FITools surfaces a one-month $45 put paying $0.55, its implied volatility in view alongside the premium. You collect $55 against the $4,500 you've reserved: about 1.2% for that period. If the stock stays above $45, the put expires and you keep the $55 and your cash. If it drops below $45, you buy the shares at $45 as you'd planned, and the $55 lowers your effective cost. You wanted the stock anyway; the premium paid you to wait for your price.
These are two unrelated trades on two unrelated stocks. Neither leads to the other.