SoFi Wheel Strategy Part 1: Selling Cash-Secured Puts With Just $1,500 in Collateral

Running the Wheel on a Budget

The wheel strategy is one of the most popular income-generating approaches for option sellers, but there's a common misconception that you need a large account to get started. In a previous series, we walked through the full wheel cycle on Apple, which required roughly $27,000 in collateral. That's a significant commitment that puts the strategy out of reach for many traders.

This time, we're running the same four-part wheel series on SoFi (SOFI), where the collateral requirement is only about $1,500. That's a fraction of the cost, and it makes the wheel strategy accessible to traders with smaller accounts who still want to collect premium and generate income.

In this first installment, we'll execute a cash-secured put in ThinkorSwim and then walk through exactly how to track that position and transaction in MyATMM. Whether you trade on ThinkorSwim, Robinhood, Tastytrade, or any other platform, the tracking process in MyATMM works the same way.

Executing a Cash-Secured Put on SoFi

For this series, we're using ThinkorSwim's On Demand feature to simulate a trade back on June 9, 2025 — a Monday, right before market open. SoFi opened around $14.40 that day, which means a near at-the-money put at the $14.50 strike was our target.

When selling cash-secured puts, you generally want to choose the strike with the most extrinsic value. In this case, the $14.50 strike had more extrinsic value than the $14.00 strike, making it the better choice for premium collection.

The Order Process

In ThinkorSwim, selling a put is straightforward: left-click on the bid price for the strike you want, which brings up the sell order. We initially tried to fill at the midpoint (the mark), but ThinkorSwim's On Demand mode was being uncooperative with the limit order.

After adjusting the limit price down a few times and still not getting a fill, we switched to a market order — which forces an immediate fill at whatever the current market price happens to be.

When Your Limit Order Won't Fill

This situation actually comes up more often than you'd think, especially on less liquid options or during volatile market conditions. Here's what you can do when a limit order keeps fighting you:

• Adjust the limit price down gradually — drop a penny at a time until it fills
• Move to the natural (bid) price — you'll get less premium, but the fill is more likely
• Switch to a market order — guarantees an immediate fill, but you accept whatever price the market gives you

In our case, despite the hassle, the market order still filled at $0.52 — right around where we wanted to be. So the "nuclear option" worked out fine. Just keep in mind that market orders carry the risk of getting a worse price than expected, particularly on wide bid-ask spreads.

Setting Up Your Portfolio in MyATMM

With the trade executed, it's time to track it. We're starting with a brand new demo portfolio in MyATMM dedicated to this SoFi wheel series. Here's the setup process.

Recording the Initial Deposit

First, you need to record your initial deposit so the dashboard and performance metrics have a baseline to work from. In our case, ThinkorSwim's paper money account starts with $100,000, so that's what we entered. You'd enter whatever your actual brokerage balance is.

Adding the Ticker

Navigate to the cost basis page and add your ticker. Type in "SOFI" — the application accepts both uppercase and lowercase and will normalize it for you. Once saved, you'll see the ticker card ready for positions.

Adding the Cash-Secured Put Position

Click New Position on your SoFi ticker card, and fill in the details from the trade you just executed:

• Date: June 9, 2025
• Action: Sell to Open
• Type: Put
• Contracts: 1
• Expiration: June 13, 2025
• Strike: $14.50
• Premium: $0.52/share ($52 total)

Once saved, the position moves into the Puts collection on the ticker card. Since the expiration date is in the past (we're simulating a historical trade), the UI highlights it in red and labels it as expired. That's just a visual indicator — the data is still recorded correctly.

At this point, the application also calculates the ROI automatically: 3.59% for a single week on $1,450 in collateral.

Why Positions and Transactions Are Separate

This is one of the most common questions new MyATMM users have, so it's worth explaining. When you record a trade, there are always two steps: the position and the transaction.

The Position

The position captures the high-level details — the premium, strike, expiration, and contract count. Think of it as the "what" of your trade. It gives you a quick visual reference of what you have open.

The Transaction

The transaction captures the financial reality — the actual dollar amount that hits your ledger, including commissions and fees. This is the "how much" of your trade, and it feeds into your permanent transaction history.

Proposed Transaction Workflow

After saving a position, MyATMM automatically generates a proposed transaction with default commission values based on your settings. You can adjust the commission and fee amounts if your broker charges differently, then click to add it to your permanent transaction history.

Different brokers have different fee structures. Schwab charges about $0.65 per contract. Tastytrade charges $1.00 total (both sides included). Robinhood technically charges fees too, though they're buried in the account statements. Regardless of your broker, you can adjust the defaults in MyATMM to match.

Understanding the Cost Basis Summary

After recording both the position and the transaction, scroll back up to the ticker's summary header. Here's what each number represents for our SoFi position:

The proposed cost basis is a particularly useful number. While you don't own shares yet, this figure tells you what your per-share cost would be if the put expires in the money and you get assigned. It factors in the premium you collected, giving you a lower effective entry price than the strike alone.

Dashboard and Performance Tracking

With the position and transaction recorded, the dashboard updates automatically. Here's what the numbers look like after our first trade:

• Total Brokerage: $100,000 initial deposit plus the $51.49 credit
• Collateral in Use: $1,450 (secured by the put)
• Capital Remaining: The difference — how much buying power you still have available

The Performance tab provides a monthly and annual view of your deposits, premiums collected, dividends received, and overall return percentage. After one trade, we're sitting at 0.1% — but remember, this is calculated against the full $100,000 balance. The return relative to the $1,450 in collateral actually used is much higher at 3.59%.

What's Coming in Part 2

We've sold our cash-secured put on SoFi and tracked everything in MyATMM. Now we wait and see what happens at expiration. In Part 2 of this series, we'll cover:

• What happens when the put expires in the money and we get assigned
• How to record the share assignment in MyATMM
• How the cost basis updates once you own the underlying shares
• Setting up for the next phase of the wheel — selling a covered call

The beauty of this series on SoFi is that it demonstrates the entire wheel cycle on a stock that only requires about $1,500 in collateral. You don't need $27,000 to run this strategy effectively — you just need a plan and a way to track it accurately.