Running the wheel strategy requires more than just placing trades—it demands meticulous tracking of every transaction to maintain accurate cost basis calculations and informed decision-making. When you're simultaneously managing covered calls on owned shares and cash-secured puts for potential assignments, knowing your exact position status becomes critical to strategy success.
This article walks through a real trading session on Marvell Technology (MRVL), demonstrating how to properly record both a covered call and cash-secured put executed at the same $37 strike price. The session reveals a common scenario option sellers face: market price moves overnight that require adjusting orders before market open, creating positions that must be carefully tracked for accurate cost basis management.
The session also addresses an important tax consideration many wheel strategy traders overlook: when you consistently enter and exit at the same price through assignments, you may avoid capital gains taxes entirely while still collecting substantial option premium as ordinary income. Understanding this distinction transforms how you think about strike selection and assignment management.
The trading day began with a common challenge: overnight price movement that invalidated the previous day's order setup. The original plan called for a covered call at the $37 strike and a cash-secured put at the $36 strike, targeting different price levels to create a balanced position.
MRVL opened the trading session significantly higher than the previous day's close. The stock gapped up from around $36 into the $37 range, fundamentally changing the options landscape. The cash-secured put order placed at the $36 strike targeting $1.14 in premium never filled because the stock was now trading a full dollar higher.
This overnight gap created a decision point: wait for price to drop back down (which might never happen), cancel the order entirely and miss the income opportunity, or adjust the strike price to match current market conditions. The trader chose the third option, demonstrating the flexibility required when running systematic option strategies.
To accommodate the higher opening price, the cash-secured put was adjusted from the $36 strike to the $37 strike—the exact same level as the covered call. This created an interesting position structure:
With MRVL closing at $36.92, the stock sat just 8 cents below the $37 strike price. This tight positioning meant one of the two options would inevitably be in the money at expiration—either the call if the stock rose above $37, or the put if it stayed below $37. The position guaranteed some form of engagement with the underlying by expiration.
The decision to move the put strike up to $37 rather than leaving it at $36 reflects a core principle emphasized throughout the MyATMM platform: at-the-money strikes typically deliver the highest premium collection. While a $36 put would have offered lower assignment risk, it would also have generated significantly less income.
The at-the-money approach accepts higher assignment probability in exchange for maximizing premium per dollar of capital deployed. For traders focused on cashflow generation rather than avoiding assignments, this trade-off makes strategic sense. The premium collected becomes the primary goal, with assignments viewed as a neutral outcome rather than something to avoid.
With both options filled, the critical task becomes logging these transactions accurately in MyATMM. Proper recording ensures your cost basis calculations reflect all premium collected and every position gets tracked correctly.
The process begins on the MyATMM cost basis page, filtered to show only your current ticker positions. In this case, MRVL showed 100 shares owned from a previous assignment. The workflow for adding new positions:
The platform provides helper fields that auto-populate many details, but you maintain full control to correct any auto-filled values that don't match your actual trade execution.
The cash-secured put transaction details:
Action: Sell to Open (Put)
Contracts: 1
Strike Price: $37.00
Expiration: January 13, 2023
Premium Received: $95.00 ($0.95 × 100)
Commission/Fees: $0.00 (simplified for demo account)
Net Credit: $95.00
Saving this transaction moves it from the draft section into the active positions area. The platform automatically increments the counter showing how many put contracts are currently open. The transaction also generates a proposed entry in the transaction history section, ready to be formalized.
The covered call follows the same process with different premium:
Action: Sell to Open (Call)
Contracts: 1
Strike Price: $37.00
Expiration: January 13, 2023
Premium Received: $127.00 ($1.27 × 100)
Commission/Fees: $0.00 (simplified for demo account)
Net Credit: $127.00
This transaction also saves to active positions, incrementing the covered call counter and generating another proposed transaction history entry.
At this point, both positions appear in the active options section, but the overall position metrics haven't updated yet. That's because the transactions exist as "proposed" entries—they're logged as open positions but haven't been finalized in the permanent transaction history that drives cost basis calculations.
To complete the logging, each proposed transaction must be moved to the permanent transaction history. The platform displays these proposed entries with all details pre-filled. Simply review each entry for accuracy and click save to move it to the permanent record.
Once both transactions are finalized in the transaction history, the cost basis page immediately updates to reflect the new premium collected, adjusted cost basis, and updated profit/loss metrics.
After logging both transactions, the MyATMM dashboard reveals the full impact of the $222 premium collection on overall position status.
| Metric | Before Transactions | After Transactions |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Gain/Loss | $99 | $321 |
| Total Credits Received | Not shown | $222 added |
| Cost Basis (Simple) | $36.01 | $36.01 (unchanged) |
| Cost Basis (Premium-Adjusted) | $36.01 | $33.79 |
The overall gain/loss jumped from $99 to $321—a $222 increase matching exactly the premium collected. This immediate reflection of premium income demonstrates how MyATMM tracks cumulative strategy performance across all transactions.
The most significant change appears in the premium-adjusted cost basis, which dropped from $36.01 to $33.79. This $2.22 per share reduction reflects the $222 in total premium spread across 100 shares.
This premium-adjusted cost basis represents the true breakeven point for the position. While the shares were purchased at $36.01, the cumulative effect of all premium collected means the position breaks even if MRVL reaches $33.79—not $36.01.
This distinction becomes critical when selecting future strike prices. A covered call at $34 might seem below your purchase price and therefore undesirable. But if your premium-adjusted cost basis is $33.79, that $34 call actually provides $0.21 of capital gain plus the call premium. Without tracking premium-adjusted cost basis, you'd miss this profitable opportunity.
The platform also reflects the $3,700 in buying power allocated to the cash-secured put. This appears in the position summary, showing how much capital is reserved if the put gets assigned. This visibility prevents overextending capital by accidentally selling more puts than your account can support through assignment.
The transaction history section now contains permanent records of both the put sale and call sale, showing:
This permanent audit trail proves every transaction occurred and provides documentation for tax reporting, performance analysis, and strategy evaluation.
The video addresses an important tax consideration that many wheel strategy traders overlook: the potential to avoid capital gains taxes entirely while still generating substantial option premium income.
A common concern among wheel strategy traders is triggering capital gains taxes through repeated assignments. The fear: every time a covered call gets assigned, you must pay taxes on the gain between your purchase price and the assignment price.
But what if you consistently buy and sell at the same price? When running the wheel strategy at consistent strikes—being assigned shares at $37 through puts, then selling those same shares at $37 through call assignment—there's no capital gain. You bought at $37, you sold at $37, the net change is zero.
In practice, you may actually incur small capital losses due to regulatory fees. If you buy 100 shares at $37.00 and sell them at $37.00, the regulatory fees might result in a net sale price of $36.99 or $36.98. This would create a small capital loss, not a gain.
Small capital losses can offset other capital gains in your portfolio, potentially providing tax benefits. But the key point: when entering and exiting at the same price, you're not creating taxable capital gains from stock trading.
The option premium collected remains taxable as ordinary income (or short-term capital gains depending on your specific circumstances—consult a tax professional). This income gets taxed regardless of whether assignments occur or options expire worthless.
The distinction becomes powerful: you can generate substantial ordinary income through premium collection while avoiding additional capital gains taxes on the stock positions themselves. The stock simply serves as a vehicle for selling premium, entering and exiting at consistent prices that create no additional tax burden.
When you continuously accept assignments at your cost basis (or lower), you're dollar cost averaging the position down over time. Each assignment at $37 when your average cost is $36 slightly increases your average. But each assignment at $34 when your average is $36 reduces your average.
Over many cycles, assuming you're targeting at-the-money strikes near your cost basis, your average purchase price tends to stabilize. This stability means future assignments continue to occur near your cost basis, perpetuating the capital-gains-neutral approach while premium collection continues generating ordinary income.
This approach reflects a fundamental philosophy shift: focus on cashflow (premium income) rather than capital appreciation (stock price gains). The stock position exists solely to enable premium selling. Whether the stock price rises or falls matters less than whether you can consistently collect premium at strikes near your cost basis.
Traders seeking capital gains need stocks to appreciate significantly. Traders focused on cashflow need stocks to remain relatively stable while providing liquid options markets with good premium. These are fundamentally different approaches with different risk profiles and tax implications.
While the cost basis page provides detailed position tracking, the MyATMM dashboard offers portfolio-level perspective on performance across multiple underlyings and time periods.
The dashboard displays a tile for each ticker you're tracking, showing key metrics at a glance:
In this case, the MRVL tile shows the $321 in overall gain/loss, making it immediately clear how this position contributes to portfolio performance without drilling into detailed transaction history.
When trading multiple tickers simultaneously, the dashboard aggregates performance across all positions. This portfolio view answers the critical question: "How is my overall wheel strategy performing?" rather than requiring you to manually sum performance across individual positions.
For traders running the wheel on five or ten different underlyings, this aggregated view becomes essential for understanding which positions drive most of the income, which positions are underperforming, and how overall strategy execution is trending.
The premiums tab provides time-based analysis, breaking down premium collection by month. This monthly grouping shows seasonal patterns in your income generation and helps set realistic income targets.
In the example, MRVL showed $321 in total premium for January. This monthly view enables month-over-month comparison: Did January perform better than December? Is income trending upward as position size grows through assignments? Are certain months consistently stronger due to market volatility patterns?
Understanding monthly performance helps set expectations and identify outliers. If you typically collect $800-$1,000 monthly on a ticker but suddenly see $400, you can investigate why—perhaps fewer trading days, lower volatility, or different strike selection strategies.
Conversely, if one month shows unusually high premium collection, you can review what conditions enabled that performance and seek to replicate those conditions in future months.
Over time, monthly tracking reveals your true average income from each position, enabling better planning around capital allocation and position sizing decisions.
With MRVL trading at $36.92 against $37 strikes on both the call and put, assignment probability analysis reveals the likely outcomes at expiration.
The stock closed regular trading hours at exactly $37.00, but after-hours trading brought the price down to $36.92. This 8-cent difference creates a fascinating assignment situation: the stock is hovering right at the strike price, making either outcome possible depending on where it trades in the days leading to Friday expiration.
With the stock so close to the $37 strike, one of the two options will almost certainly be in the money at expiration:
The trader emphasized that this guaranteed engagement doesn't concern them. Assignment on either side simply represents the next step in the wheel cycle, not a negative outcome to be avoided.
MyATMM showed unrealized gain/loss at zero with the stock trading at $37 and the cost basis at $37. This zero unrealized status reflects the break-even nature of the current position before accounting for premium collected.
However, the premium-adjusted cost basis of $33.79 tells a different story. While the unrealized gain/loss on shares shows zero, the position is actually profitable once you account for all premium collected. The shares could drop to $33.79 and the position would still be breakeven overall.
Many traders fear assignment, viewing it as strategy failure. But in the wheel strategy implemented with proper tracking, assignments represent neutral mechanical events:
The systematic tracking in MyATMM reinforces this neutral assignment perspective by automatically handling the position updates when assignments occur. The platform processes the assignment, adjusts share count, updates cost basis, and prepares for the next cycle—all based on accurate transaction records.
This MRVL trading session demonstrates principles that apply to every wheel strategy position you track in MyATMM.
Don't wait days or weeks to log transactions. As soon as orders fill, record them in MyATMM. Immediate logging prevents forgotten transactions, ensures current cost basis accuracy, and maintains clean records for tax reporting.
The trader demonstrated logging both options the same day they were executed. This real-time recording means the cost basis page always reflects current position status, enabling informed decisions about next week's strikes.
Understanding the two-step logging process prevents confusion. Active positions track what options are currently open, when they expire, and how much premium was collected. Transaction history tracks every dollar that flowed in and out of your account.
Both tracking layers are essential. Positions tell you what's currently at risk. History tells you how cost basis has evolved over time and what your true performance has been.
Regularly compare your MyATMM account balance to your actual brokerage balance. These should match exactly. Any discrepancy indicates a missing transaction or data entry error that needs correction before the error compounds.
The dashboard reconciliation feature makes this verification simple—the platform displays both balances side by side. A quick glance confirms everything is properly tracked.
Before selecting strikes for new options, check your current premium-adjusted cost basis. This number should guide your strike selection, not your original purchase price.
If premium-adjusted cost basis is $33.79, strikes at $34, $35, or $36 all represent profitable covered calls even though they might be below your simple cost basis. Without tracking premium-adjusted cost basis, you'd avoid these profitable strikes thinking they represented losses.
The video simplified by ignoring commission and fees for the demo account. In real trading, these small costs matter. A $0.65 commission per contract might seem negligible, but over 52 weekly trades, that's $33.80 in friction cost.
MyATMM tracks commissions and fees for this reason. When evaluating strategy profitability, you need gross premium (what the option paid) and net premium (what you actually received after costs). The platform calculates both, ensuring your performance analysis reflects real returns, not idealized returns.
This MRVL trading session demonstrates that proper transaction logging isn't ancillary to wheel strategy success—it's foundational. Without accurate records of every option sold, every premium collected, and every assignment processed, you cannot calculate true cost basis or make informed decisions about future strike selections.
The session revealed several key insights. First, overnight price movements require flexibility in strike selection—the ability to adjust from a $36 put to a $37 put maintained at-the-money positioning for maximum premium collection. Second, accepting both a call and put at the same $37 strike creates guaranteed engagement with the underlying, ensuring one side will be in the money by expiration. Third, running the wheel at consistent strikes may enable you to avoid capital gains taxes while generating substantial ordinary income through premium collection.
The systematic tracking process—creating draft positions, logging transaction history, verifying premium-adjusted cost basis updates—ensures every dollar of premium collected properly reduces your breakeven point. The $222 in premium from this session dropped cost basis from $36.01 to $33.79, creating $2.22 per share of cushion that makes future covered calls profitable even at strikes below the original purchase price.
MyATMM provides the infrastructure that makes this systematic approach practical. The two-step logging process (positions plus history), automatic cost basis calculations, dashboard reconciliation, and monthly premium tracking transform chaotic option selling into organized income generation. Without this tracking infrastructure, wheel strategy execution remains guesswork. With proper tracking, it becomes data-driven strategy execution.
The tax considerations discussed highlight an under-appreciated advantage of the wheel strategy: when consistently entering and exiting at similar prices through assignments, stock trading generates minimal or zero capital gains while premium collection creates continuous ordinary income. This tax structure can be favorable compared to strategies focused on capital appreciation, though individual circumstances vary and professional tax advice is essential.
Future sessions will show what happens with these $37 strikes as Friday expiration approaches—whether the call gets assigned if MRVL rallies, or whether the put gets assigned if MRVL remains below $37. Either outcome simply advances the wheel to its next phase, with all transactions properly tracked in MyATMM for accurate ongoing cost basis management.
Options trading involves significant risk and is not suitable for all investors. Selling cash-secured puts obligates you to purchase shares at the strike price if assigned, potentially resulting in substantial losses if the stock declines. Covered calls limit upside potential and do not protect against downside risk beyond the premium received.
The tax information provided represents general concepts only and should not be considered tax advice. Tax treatment of options trading varies based on individual circumstances, account type, holding periods, and specific tax regulations. Always consult a qualified tax professional regarding your specific tax situation.
Marvell Technology (MRVL) is used as an example only and does not constitute a recommendation to trade this or any other security. This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice.
MyATMM logs every transaction, calculates premium-adjusted cost basis automatically, and maintains complete audit trails for all your wheel strategy positions.
Track up to 3 tickers completely free. No credit card required.
Start Tracking Your Options TodayJoin traders who know their exact cost basis on every position