Free
One question, no account, no card.
$0
- Run the covered-call comparison in your browser
- Move the option-richness dial and watch the conclusion move with it
- Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for
- Fixed settings, one benchmark, no saved history
Short calls improved 92 of 96 runs.
Without one assumption, 59.
The assumption is that the options you sell are worth less than you are paid for them. Every covered-call pitch you have ever read takes it for granted, and none of them show you what happens when it is not true. This is the instrument that showed us.
Do short calls really improve a LEAPS strategy?
92 of 96
Baseline historical-model configurations in which short calls increased terminal wealth, with the options assumed to sell for 15% above fair value. Median improvement $11,266.
59 of 96
The same configurations with that 15% set to zero. Same strategy, same paths, one assumption withdrawn. Median contribution falls to $1,362.
An edge that survives in 92 of 96 runs looks settled. An edge that needs the options to be 15% overpriced to get there is a different claim, and it is the one you are actually making every time you sell a call. Nobody can tell you what that number is for your stock on the day you sell it — so the free lab hands you the dial and lets you watch the answer move.
These are overlapping model runs, not independent trials or real option-chain backtests. The study states its protocol, its seed and its assumptions, and the comparison is rerunnable in your browser.
Across the research completed so far, results have more often been unfavourable to option sellers than favourable. That is the finding, not a disclaimer. If you are looking for a tool that agrees with you, this is the wrong one.
Your backtest ran once.
History delivered exactly one path. Whatever your covered-call or Wheel backtest returned is a single draw from a distribution you never got to see — and you have no way to tell, from that one number, whether the edge was real or the path was kind.
What a backtest tells you
One realization of the past.
- What happened, once, on the single path that history actually took
- Results built on the one implied-volatility environment that occurred
- One sequence of drawdowns, in the order they happened to arrive
- An edge that may belong to the path rather than to the strategy
What the simulator adds
The distribution that result came from.
- Thousands of alternate markets, block-resampled from real SPY and QQQ daily returns since 2001
- Option richness as a dial you sweep, not a fact you inherit — the one variable history ran only once
- A dynamic IV surface with skew and term structure, plus real decay, rolling, and assignment mechanics
- Falsification and holdout workflows against exposure-matched benchmarks, so a result has to survive being attacked
This does not replace your backtester. A backtest estimates what the market did; this estimates how much of that was luck. Run both.
While you are subscribed
The subscription is not a tool rental. It is access to research as it is produced, and to the instrument that produced it.
- New finished studiesEach one states a question, freezes a protocol before the numbers exist, and publishes what it found — including when the finding is unfavourable. Added as they are completed.
- Every study is rerunnableA result you cannot stress is a picture, not a finding. Open any study, put your own withdrawal rate, horizon or seed in, and run it again in about a second.
- Ten labs on one pricing engineCovered call, CSP / Wheel, LEAPS, PMCC, conditional edge, regime, investment, RMD and household tax, signal, and the strike calculator.
- Your own research recordThe Research Console turns a question into a structured experiment, runs it server-side, and saves the result with the engine fingerprint that produced it, so you can tell later which version answered you.
Plans
Start free with no account at all. Subscribe when you want to attack a result rather than read one.
Monthly
Flexible research access, billed monthly.
$29 per month
- 14-day free trial for new accounts
- Every lab, and every finished study as it is published
- Thousands of Monte Carlo paths per experiment, against matched buy-and-hold and exposure-matched benchmarks
- Premium-sensitivity, threshold-robustness, regime-sweep, holdout and falsification workflows — the tools that break a result
- Reproducible server-run results, saved to your own account history
- Cancel any time from your account
Annual
For sustained research work.
$249 per year — $20.75 per month
- 14-day free trial for new accounts
- Everything in Monthly
- Roughly two months free against monthly billing
- One renewal date to keep track of
- Manage payment details in the billing portal
How the free trial works
A payment method is required to start the trial. You are not charged while the trial runs.
The trial does not cancel itself. When it ends, the plan you chose begins automatically and your card is charged, unless you have cancelled before that date. One trial per account.
Cancelling during the trial does not cut your access short. The lab stays open to you until the trial's last day, and no charge is ever made. There is no penalty for cancelling on day two rather than day thirteen, so you do not need to wait until the deadline to decide.
How to cancel during the trial
- Sign in and open your account page.
- Look at Trial or renewal date. That is the date you would first be charged. Cancel on or before the day before it.
- Press Manage billing. This opens the secure billing portal run by Stripe, our payment processor.
- Choose to cancel the plan. Stripe asks why you are cancelling, then asks you to confirm.
- You are returned to your account page.
You can cancel at any time, during the trial or afterwards, by the same route. Nothing has to go through us, and you do not need to send an email or wait for a reply. If the Manage billing button is not visible, or anything does not work as described here, write to us before the renewal date rather than after it.
Before you subscribe
Portfolio Research Lab is a research and education instrument. It simulates markets. It has no brokerage connection, places no trades, and handles no real money.
Nothing produced by this tool is investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to trade. Mark is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. Options carry substantial risk of loss and are not suitable for every investor.
Simulated results are not predictions. They describe the behaviour of a model under stated assumptions, and every published finding on this site carries its assumptions with it. Read them. Across the research completed so far, results have more often been unfavourable to option sellers than favourable — that is the finding, not a disclaimer.
Questions about billing, cancellation, or a refund? Open your account to reach the billing portal, where you can cancel at any time. Cancelling stops future billing at the end of the period you have paid for.
Already subscribed? Open your account to manage billing and research access.