Lessons Learned
Lessons from the briefing record — each tied to a real example, not to a general rule of thumb.
Examples are from the Friday, Oct 30, 2026 closing briefing unless another date is stated. Educational snapshot only — not financial advice.
1. Raw yield flatters — sort by excess, not by yield
Annualising a premium makes every put look like a yearly return, even though the premium is for one cycle only. Sorting by raw yield alone ranks the riskiest puts first.
The FrenzyCap worked example from real chain data (June 11, 2026) shows the reversal plainly:
| Put | Raw yield | Excess vs T-bill | Bag-hold |
|---|---|---|---|
| MARA $13, 71 DTE | 70% | −1.7% | 3/3 |
| AAPL $295, 7 DTE | 66% | +2.3% | 0/3 |
Sorting by raw yield puts MARA above AAPL. Sorting by excess — yield minus the risk-free rate — reverses it. That is why the site shows ANN. YIELD and its excess over the T-bill on every put row, and why a high premium is never, on its own, treated as a good setup.
2. A band touch is not an entry by itself
The entry rule needs two things at once: a Bollinger Band (20, 2) lower-band touch and a close above the 200-day SMA. The second part is a regime filter, not a footnote.
On Oct 30, 2026, BMNR touched its lower band — but it closed at 20.18, below its 200-day SMA of 20.94. The regime filter blocked it, so there was no entry, and it is listed as blocked instead of hidden. A touch in a downtrend is a different situation from a touch in an uptrend, and the rule treats them differently.
3. A put can pay less than a T-bill and still be a valid timing setup
Excess is a honesty check, not a second entry rule. The rule fires on timing (band + regime); yield is shown so the premium is not mistaken for a return.
Oct 30, 2026, with the FRED DTB4WK 4-week T-bill rate at 3.91% (as of Oct 29, 2026):
| Put | ANN. YIELD | Excess vs T-bill |
|---|---|---|
| SPY 680, Dec 18 (49 DTE) | 4.17% | +0.26pp |
| SPY 673, Dec 31 (62 DTE) | 3.71% | −0.20pp |
The Dec 31 put annualised below the T-bill while still carrying assignment risk. That does not automatically disqualify it — the setup fired on timing, not on yield — but it is exactly the kind of number that should be visible before anyone confuses a $4.24 premium with a 3.71% return.
4. High IV alone is not a setup
The screener ranks setups by IV for display — the top-IV table is a way to look across names, not a signal. An entry fires only when all of the rule's conditions hold together: BB lower-band touch, close above the 200-day SMA, a put in the 45–75 DTE window, and roughly 10 delta.
IV makes premiums richer, which is why the site shows it, but a high-IV name with no band touch, or a band touch below the 200-day, is not an entry. The display ranking and the entry rule are two different things, and they are kept separate on purpose.
5. Show your misses
Every watched ticker is listed with its no-setup reason — no band touch, or blocked as bearish — not just the ones that fired.
The reason is simple: a signal list that hides its misses cannot be checked. If only the entries were shown, there would be no way to tell whether a quiet day meant "no setups" or "the scan did not run". Listing the misses, with the reason, is what makes the entries themselves trustworthy.
6. Labels matter — say what the number is
The screener used to label two columns BUFFER% and YIELD%. Both hid what the numbers meant: the first is how far the price can fall before hitting the strike, and the second is an annualised figure, not the return on that one trade.
They are now CUSHION and ANN. YIELD, so a reader sees what each number measures before comparing it with anything else.