How Short Put Screener Works
Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to be here. Before we get into the product, I want to give you a personal and honest introduction to why Short Put Screener exists and what I hope it helps people do.
The story behind Short Put Screener
Financial freedom and passive income have been themes that stayed with me for a long time. On that path, I looked at different approaches, from stocks to ETFs, and eventually kept coming back to options trading.
For me personally, options were where things became especially compelling. I liked that the return profile could be attractive, that sideways market phases still offered opportunity, and that the income logic felt closer to rent from real estate than to simply hoping prices keep rising. My personal view is that this can even be more powerful than classic real estate in some cases, but that is my preference, not a universal truth. Everyone finds their own fit over time.
What also drew me in was the rhythm. If you work with a monthly trade cycle, the process can become surprisingly focused. Instead of feeling glued to the market every day, you can often concentrate your attention into a much smaller window and work far more deliberately.
That is where the real problem started to show itself. I kept trying to improve my own workflow: first with websites, then with spreadsheets, then with more elaborate Excel files and VBA scripts. Each step helped for a while, but eventually the process became too broad, too slow, and too demanding. In the beginning, it could take me several days to work through the data and arrive at the candidates I actually wanted to trade.
That was not good enough, especially once it became clear how important timing is in options trading. If the goal is to act early in the cycle, a workflow that takes days is simply too late. So I started automating the data side first. After that came months of development around a ranking and selection framework built to produce a repeatable shortlist. Today, that framework moves hundreds of rule-based settings behind the scenes in a structured way.
When the first trade results looked promising, I began sharing them with close friends who also trade options. Their feedback was encouraging enough that the project stopped feeling like a private tool and started feeling like something that could genuinely help other people too. That is what eventually led to the web platform. And that is how we ended up here: you, me, and the Short Put Screener.
How the workflow is structured
The platform was built as a connected workflow, not as a loose collection of tools. Each part has a specific role.
Everything starts with the goal. In Dream, the user defines a monthly target budget or a target portfolio value. That target is translated into a rough annual return requirement without making any promise that it is realistic or achievable. The point is not certainty. The point is clarity about what the workflow is trying to optimize toward.
The Screener is designed to bring users to useful favorites quickly. To keep the decision process practical, the workflow puts strong emphasis on two core dimensions: return and delta. Once users understand where they are in the option cycle, the filtering process can become very fast and intuitive.
A shortlist alone is not enough. The Analyzer is there to separate stronger setups from weaker ones in seconds, using a simple traffic-light style logic. And if a desired contract is not part of the current favorites, the manual contract check gives users a direct way to review a specific ticker, expiration, and strike.
A promising single put is still not a portfolio. The Planner shifts the focus from isolated trades to portfolio construction, sector balance, and fit within the existing holdings. That broader view matters to me because the real goal is not just finding one attractive contract. It is building a portfolio that reaches the desired return with as little unnecessary risk as possible.
1. What our algorithm does
The algorithm combines several analysis layers to produce a structured shortlist.
- Roughly 12,000 stocks and about 2 million option contracts
- Updates every 15 minutes
- Next cycle only, including monthly, weekly, and MWF expirations
- Cash-secured as well as margin or naked workflows
- Liquidity
- Event warnings
- Fundamental analysis
- Technical analysis
- Implied volatility context
- Diversification and sector allocation
A personal closing thought
What matters most to me is that each person finds an approach that truly fits their own goals, risk profile, and daily life. If Short Put Screener can support that process even a little, that means a lot to me.
I wish you good decisions, steady progress, and a way of working that feels right for you over the long run. And if you have feedback, questions, or ideas, I would be very glad to hear from you.