The estimator shows an illustrative projection of what a portfolio like yours could have earned over a historical period, using the Income Factory engine's rules. It is not a forecast. It does not promise future income.

The estimator is free to use and requires no account and no payment. Enter your stock holdings and share counts at incomefactory.ai/analyze to see a projection for your portfolio.

What the estimator actually calculates

When you enter your holdings into the estimator, the engine runs those positions through its covered-call analysis rules against historical options data. The result is an annualized income range — the amount that portfolio configuration would have generated over the simulation period if Income Factory's analyses had been followed each week.

The numbers reflect:

  • Your specific holdings and share counts
  • Your assignment preference (Avoid, Indifferent, or Open) and your account type
  • The engine's actual strike-selection and expiration-selection rules
  • A historical period with real options pricing data

What "illustrative" means

Several factors prevent the estimate from being a guarantee:

Markets change. The premium available on a covered call depends on implied volatility, which rises and falls with market conditions. A high-volatility period generates more premium; a low-volatility period generates less. The historical simulation captures variation across periods, but future conditions may differ from the historical range.

You control execution. The simulation assumes every trade the engine surfaced was placed at the analyzed price. In practice, you place trades when you choose, at the price you can get. Execution timing, partial fills, and trades you decide to skip all affect the actual result.

Assignment outcomes vary. When shares get called away, the simulation assumes a specific rebuy behavior. Your actual rebuy decisions — timing, price, whether to re-establish the position at all — will differ.

Taxes are not included. The estimate is pre-tax. Premium income and assignment proceeds have tax treatment that depends on your account type, holding period, and personal tax situation. The estimate does not account for any of this.

What the assignment preference and account type change

The estimator has two levers — the same ones the full tool uses.

Assignment preference — how willing you are to have shares called away. This sets how close to the current price the engine aims the strike, which changes both the premium collected and how often assignment happens:

  • Avoid — safer, higher strikes further above the current price: lower premium, and you're more likely to keep your shares.
  • Indifferent — balanced: a middle ground between premium collected and assignment risk.
  • Open — strikes closer to the current price: more premium per trade, and a greater chance of assignment.

Account type — Taxable, Traditional, or Roth. Your account type sets a sensible starting preference, because assignment lands differently depending on the account. In a taxable account, having shares called away can trigger capital-gains tax, so the estimator starts at Avoid. In a tax-deferred account (Traditional or Roth), that tax friction doesn't apply, so it starts at Indifferent. You can override the preference with the control either way.

The estimates show what each preference could have produced on your portfolio. They don't tell you which one is right for you — that depends on how you feel about shares being called away, your account type, and your income goals. That is a judgment call, not an analytical one.

How to read the estimate usefully

The estimate is most useful as a comparison tool:

  • Compare the assignment preferences (Avoid, Indifferent, Open) side by side to see what the tradeoff between them looks like on your specific holdings.
  • Compare different portfolio configurations to see how adding or removing a stock would affect the projected income range.
  • Understand the order of magnitude of what the strategy could generate — the difference between "this is a meaningful income stream" and "this is pocket change on my portfolio."

It is not reliable as a precise prediction of what you will earn next year.

Common follow-up questions

The estimate seems high. Is that realistic?

The simulation uses historical data across multiple market cycles, including high-volatility periods that generated unusually elevated premiums. The result reflects what actually happened historically, which includes exceptional periods alongside ordinary ones. Future income will depend on future conditions.

My estimate changed between visits. Why?

The estimator recalculates when you change your holdings, your assignment preference, or your account type. It may also update when the underlying simulation data is refreshed. If you changed nothing and the number shifted, the data source was updated.

Does the free estimator use the same engine as the full product?

Yes. The same analysis rules that generate your weekly analysis also power the estimator. The difference is that the estimator runs against historical data; the full product runs the same logic against current market pricing every Friday.

This is educational content, not investment advice. Covered calls involve risk of assignment and loss of upside appreciation.