PMCC Scanner

Finds optimal Poor Man’s Covered Call setups by scoring symbols on option chain quality.

What is PMCC?

Buy deep ITM LEAPS call (delta ~0.80) + Sell short-term OTM call (delta ~0.20) against it. Cheaper alternative to covered calls.

Instructions

Note: If uv is not installed or pyproject.toml is not found, replace uv run python with python in all commands below.

uv run python scripts/scan.py SYMBOLS [options]

Arguments

• SYMBOLS – Comma-separated tickers or path to JSON file from bullish scanner
• --min-leaps-days – Minimum LEAPS expiration in days (default: 270 = 9 months)
• --leaps-delta – Target LEAPS delta (default: 0.80)
• --short-delta – Target short call delta (default: 0.20)
• --output – Save results to JSON file

Scoring System (max ~11 points)

Output

Returns JSON with:

• criteria – Scan parameters used
• results – Array sorted by score:
  • symbol, price, iv_pct, pmcc_score
  • leaps – expiry, strike, delta, bid/ask, spread%, volume, OI
  • short – expiry, strike, delta, bid/ask, spread%, volume, OI
  • metrics – net_debit, short_yield%, annual_yield%, capital_required
• errors – Symbols that failed (no options, insufficient data)

Examples

# Scan specific symbols
uv run python scripts/scan.py AAPL,MSFT,GOOGL,NVDA

# Use output from bullish scanner
uv run python scripts/scan.py bullish_results.json

# Custom delta targets
uv run python scripts/scan.py AAPL,MSFT --leaps-delta 0.70 --short-delta 0.15

# Longer LEAPS (1 year minimum)
uv run python scripts/scan.py AAPL,MSFT --min-leaps-days 365

# Save results
uv run python scripts/scan.py AAPL,MSFT,GOOGL --output pmcc_results.json

Key Constraints

• Short strike must be above LEAPS strike
• Options with bid = 0 (illiquid) are skipped
• Moderate IV (25-50%) scores highest

Interpretation

• Score > 9: Excellent candidate
• Score 7-9: Good candidate
• Score 5-7: Acceptable with caveats
• Score < 5: Poor liquidity or structure

Dependencies

• numpy
• pandas
• scipy
• yfinance