Evaluating stocks for Poor Man's Covered Calls: criteria, scoring, and a scanner to automate it
u/staskh1966 ·
Reddit — r/options
· April 04, 2026 at 18:09
· ⬆ 22 pts
· 💬 11 comments
| View on Reddit ↗
AI Summary
Summary
Main theme is a critical analysis of the Poor Man's Covered Call (PMCC) and Covered Call strategies, highlighting their structural limitations.
Dominant sentiment from the provided top comment is that these strategies are suboptimal because they cap significant upside potential, which contradicts the "heavy tail" return distribution of stocks.
No specific earnings, tickers, or concrete trade setups are discussed in the provided comment.
Score22
Comments11
▶ Full Post Text
[+5] u/uncleBu: Covered Calls and PMCC alone are subpar strategies simply because their PnL have a big potential downside while only providing a small positive upside. We know the distribution of stocks have heavy tail and most of the returns come from the few times those outsize returns materialize, so you are working against the underlying distributions. You can add a lot of bells and whistles to make things better, but I'd argue it doesn't make sense to swim against the stream.
If you use these strategies make sure to never cap all your positive upside (aka why the wheel is a bad strategy). Feel free to dislike obvious truths ⬇︎