Today I sold 4 BP Jan09 50 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $429.00 in an IRA account.  My basis for these BP shares is now 63.71 without consideration for dividends received.

I really don’t want BP called away from me.  It pays a good dividend of .84 per quarter which translates to about 6.85% annually.  BP also tends to have a decent option premium.  With all that said, I took a chance today with BP trading over 49 that it would not reach my strike price of 50 in the next 8 days prior to these options expiring.  If it does, I will roll the options out and up to protect them while earning additional option premium.

I should say again that I am long term bullish on energy in general and oil in particular.  In addition to these shares I own another 100 BP shares along with shares of CCJ (uranium), VLO (refining), PDS (oil well services), and MEE (coal).  I just don’t think there will be enough energy to go around in the future which makes energy related stocks very attractive to me.