This is the PremiumGuardHQ calculation reference. Every formula the platform runs on your broker data is documented here, with the source-of-truth in production code. No black box, no proprietary fudge factors. If a number is on your dashboard, it came from one of these formulas.
These are the only three numbers a wheel trader needs to trust. Every cycle PremiumGuard detects produces exactly these three values, computed from your raw trade data.
totalPremiumReceived − totalPremiumCosts Sum of credits from sold options, minus debits from bought options. Includes both opening and closing legs.
Why it matters The unearned-income meter. Tells you what the market paid you to take risk, before any assignment math.
cycle-detector.ts equityProceeds − equityCost Sale proceeds of shares sold minus the cost basis of shares acquired (via buy, put assignment, or call exercise).
Why it matters What the underlying did to your book. Captures whether assignments hurt you or whether shares appreciated through the cycle.
cycle-detector.ts premiumPl + equityPl The cycle’s real outcome. Combines what you earned from options with what the underlying cost or gave you.
Why it matters The single number a wheel trader can trust. Brokers obscure this by adjusting cost basis for premiums received and wash sales. PremiumGuard never does.
cycle-detector.ts:44
Each value is computed in decimal.js arbitrary-precision arithmetic. No
floating-point drift, no rounding errors at scale.
PremiumGuard doesn’t track individual trades. It tracks cycles: every option sale, every assignment, every closing leg gets stitched into the wheel or standalone position it belongs to. P/L lives on the cycle, never on the trade.
wheel A multi-leg cycle that holds shares plus the option activity tied to them. Created when a put is assigned or shares are bought into an open option position. Closes when shares fall below 100 (the call-writing floor).
zero_duration A cycle that opens and closes without shares ever changing hands. The classic case: sell a put, it expires worthless, premium booked. No equity leg, no assignment.
standalone A bought-option position not tied to an existing wheel. Long calls and long puts held outright. Tracked separately so hedges and speculation never pollute wheel P/L. A standalone stays open until every contract is closed, expired, or exercised. Scaling out across multiple orders keeps all fills in one cycle.
Each row from your broker feed is mapped to exactly one of these events before the cycle engine processes it. Everything else (transfers, fees, dividends, splits) is filtered out as non-trading account activity.
equity_buyequity_sellsell_call_to_opensell_put_to_openbuy_call_to_openbuy_put_to_openbuy_to_closesell_to_closecall_assignedput_assignedcall_expiredput_expiredcall_exercisedput_exercisedWhen multiple trades share a date (the assignment-then-sell scenario, the expire-then-resell roll), priority decides which the engine sees first. Assignments always process before sells so the wheel knows about the new shares before they’re traded, and an expiring contract settles before any new sale that day, so a covered call that expires and is rewritten the same session reads in the right order. Before this ordering runs, a single equity order that the broker filled in pieces (same symbol, same day, same side) is aggregated into one logical trade, so a position is attributed in full before it can cross the 100-share floor.
assignment First — new shares must register before sells exercise Option exercised into shares buy Equity purchase buy_to_open New long option position expiration Old contract settles before any new sale that day sell_to_open New short option position sell Equity sale buy_to_close Close a short option sell_to_close Close a long option Not your current exposure. Not your average exposure. The peak dollar amount the platform observed at any moment between the cycle’s open and close. PremiumGuard walks each cycle’s trades chronologically and tracks the running notional, recording the maximum.
For each trade in the cycle, ordered by date + action priority, apply the delta. Track the running total. Clamp at zero (CAR is never negative). Record the peak.
| Event | Delta | Note |
|---|---|---|
sell_put_to_open | + strike × qty × 100 | Full notional obligation to buy if assigned. |
sell_call_to_open | + strike × uncovered × 100 | Covered contracts add nothing. Only naked / uncovered exposure counts. |
put_assigned | − strike × qty × 100 | Obligation fulfilled; shares received. |
call_assigned | − strike × qty × 100 | Shares called away. |
buy | + total cash deployed | Equity bought outright. |
sell | − proceeds | Equity sold; clamps at zero, never negative. |
Sell a $180 put. Get assigned. Cover with a $185 call. Get called away. The peak observed
exposure becomes the cycle’s maxCapitalAtRisk.
sell_put_to_open 1× AAPL put, strike $180 + 180 × 1 × 100 = +$18,000 put_assigned Put exercised, 100 shares received − 180 × 1 × 100 = −$18,000 sell_call_to_open 1× covered call, strike $185 + $0 (covered — no notional) call_assigned Shares called away at $185 − 185 × 1 × 100 (clamped at 0) maxCapitalAtRisk $18,000 The unique math at the heart of the platform. PremiumGuard takes your closed-cycle profits and nets previous withdrawals. Above target, it caps the draw at the room above target so a withdrawal never erodes the base capital that’s producing your income. Below target, it throttles the draw to a configurable fraction while you rebuild.
Closed-cycle profits − Previous withdrawals Account value − Target equity max( min(Gross Available, Room Above Target), $0 ) Account value sits above target and realised profit fits within the room above target. The full profit is yours.
Profit ≤ room above target. Take the full gross.
Above target, but realised profit exceeds the room above target. Withdraw down to target and keep the rest working.
Profit exceeds the room. Cap at the surplus: $58,000 − $50,000.
Account value is below target. Withdrawals are throttled to a configurable fraction of profit while you rebuild.
Below target. Throttle to 50%: $15,000 × 0.50.
Brokerages reshape cost basis for wash sales and premiums received, which is why the number on your broker screen often disagrees with what your wheel actually did. PremiumGuard ignores those adjustments and applies one of three deterministic formulas, based on how the shares were acquired.
weightedAvgCostBasis When you add to an existing share position, cost basis re-averages across all shares held. PremiumGuard computes the weighted mean using existing shares + new shares.
(existingShares × existingAvg + newShares × newPrice) ÷ totalShares 100 sh @ $30 avg. Buy 200 more @ $25.
(100 × 30) + (200 × 25) = 3,000 + 5,000 = 8,000 8,000 ÷ 300 sh = $26.67 / share assignmentCostBasis When a cash-secured put is assigned, the strike price is your cost. The premium you collected stays in Premium P/L — it does not lower the cost basis.
cost = strikePrice Sold $50 put for $200 premium. Assigned.
cost basis = $50 / share Premium of $200 stays in totalPremiumReceived exerciseCostBasis When you exercise a bought call into shares, your cost per share is the strike plus the premium you paid (amortized across the share count).
cost = strike + (premiumPaidTotal ÷ shareCount) Bought call $15 strike for $200 total premium. Exercised.
$15 + ($200 ÷ 100 sh) $15 + $2.00 = $17.00 / share Insights is a deterministic rule engine: plain arithmetic over your own fills, detected cycles, live quotes, the earnings calendar, and the strategy profile you declared. The same inputs always produce the same output, and every insight carries the numbers that fired it. It runs after every sync and nightly, and a code-level test bans prescriptive language from every template: an insight reports what crossed a line, never what to do about it.
your fills + detected cycles live quotes earnings calendar daily price snapshots declared strategy profile withdrawal history A neutral observation worth knowing. Nothing is wrong; the numbers just say something you might not have noticed.
Worth attention. A measurement is moving toward a line you or the rule defines, but has not crossed it.
A defined line has been crossed and the condition is true right now. Flags never age out while they remain true.
Severity describes the state of a measurement. It never encodes a recommendation.
Computed over your full closed-cycle history, but reported only for tickers you are still involved with: an open cycle, or cycle activity inside a trailing activity window.
premium_equity_decomposition Splits a ticker’s closed-cycle P/L into premium collected versus equity result, so a winner propped up by one stock move (or dragged by one assignment) is visible as such.
win_rate_outlier Compares a ticker’s closed-cycle win rate against your account average and reports material outliers in either direction, subject to per-ticker and account sample floors.
ticker_annualized_return Annualizes each ticker’s closed-cycle returns and reports meaningful deviation from your account’s own annualized rate.
capital_efficiency Return per unit of capital-time deployed, per ticker versus account. Standout tickers are reported.
repeat_offender Cumulative closed losses concentrated in a single ticker. Escalates from watch to flag as the cumulative loss deepens.
open_cycle_aging Days an open cycle has been running versus a multiple of your own median closed-cycle length.
entry_yield_quality Groups closed cycles into entry premium-yield buckets (premium ÷ strike notional at entry) and compares win rates across buckets that meet the sample floor.
Evaluated against open positions at current quotes. Short legs whose expiration has passed but whose outcome the broker has not reported yet are excluded; they are not open risk.
earnings_before_expiration An earnings date landing before an open short option’s expiration. Flag when the report is imminent; watch otherwise.
short_put_near_money Open short puts near the money at current quotes. In the money is always a flag.
assigned_shares_underwater Assigned shares trading below their weighted-average cost basis. Deeper price-to-basis ratios escalate from watch to flag.
expiration_week A radar of open contracts expiring within the coming sessions, so expiration week never arrives unannounced.
concentration_snapshot Any single ticker’s share of your total open capital at risk. Profile-independent; it fires whether or not you declared a cap.
These rules only run if you declare a strategy profile for the account: target return, concentration cap, strike range, diversification floor, DTE habits. You declare it once; the engine measures drift against it.
concentration_vs_cap A ticker’s share of open capital at risk versus the per-position cap you declared. Materially exceeding your own cap escalates to flag.
strike_drift Recent short-put openings versus your declared strikes-out-of-the-money range, measured in per-symbol strike increments (see definitions below).
pace_vs_target Realized return pace over the trailing window versus the annual target you declared.
diversification_floor Distinct tickers deployed versus the minimum you declared.
withdrawal_conformance Actual withdrawals over the window versus what the Safe Withdrawal Engine computed as safe.
dte_drift Days-to-expiration of recent openings versus the typical and maximum DTE you declared.
open capital at risk Concentration rules divide by your total open capital at risk, not account equity. On a margin account, equity understates what is actually deployed; capital at risk is the true allocation base. “31% of open capital at risk” means 31% of the dollars currently exposed, not 31% of your account value.
strike increment Your strike range is declared the way traders speak: “I sell 1 to 3 strikes out.” The engine infers each symbol’s strike increment from the gaps in your own traded strikes, snapped to the standard 0.50 / 1 / 2.50 / 5 / 10 ladder, with a price-based fallback for symbols you have not traded. Drift classification allows half-strike tolerance.
entry premium yield Premium received divided by strike notional at entry. It captures how rich the entry was independent of what happened afterward, which is what makes cross-bucket win-rate comparison meaningful.
Trigger thresholds are versioned in code, set conservatively, and tuned as live data accumulates. The rules themselves, and everything on this page, hold regardless of tuning.
Every number on your dashboard traces back to a formula on this page and a row in your broker history. If a calculation surprises you, the source is recoverable.
Methodology questions? Email support@premiumguardhq.com. Engineering answers, not marketing.