On Monday, 1/23/12, I sold 7 DSX Sep12 $10.00 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $258.70 in 2 IRA accounts, 4 in one account and 3 in the other.  My basis for these DSX shares is now $10.53 and $25.99 respectively, excluding dividends received.  These transactions represent approximate simple and annual returns of 3.420% / 1.39% and 5.13% / 2.08% respectively.

The Calls that expired last week were for the $15 strike.  This time I decided that DSX is not going anywhere for a while and that the $10 strike was probably a good bet with little risk of being called away.  With few exceptions there has been resistance in the mid $8 range since last August.

I still don’t know where the dry bulk shippers are headed.  The Baltic index was down yesterday, as I believe were the railroads.  S&P does not currently have a 12-month price target and has no opinion on DSX.  MarketEdge has a price opinion of $7.87 and a Neutral opinion.  The 12 Yahoo Analysts have a 12-month price target of $10.21 and a recommendation of 2.6 in a scale where 1.0 is a Strong Buy and 5.0 is a Strong Sell.  My thoughts about DSX have not changed since my last posting.  I repeat below what I wrote then.

DSX last paid dividends in 4th quarter of 2008.  It had been increasing its dividends each quarter with the last one being .95.  I am hopeful and expect that dividends will resume as the world economy recovers.  In the mean time I will continue to sell Covered Calls to “make my own dividend” .

To some degree I think DSX is an extension of Warren Buffet’s purchasing railroads.  If the railroads are going to move coal, foreign steel and grains then there needs to be dry bulk shippers to move those same products across the oceans.  That is what DSX does.  I’m not sure if that comparison still applies but Buffet is in for the long term and perhaps in the long run DSX will recover.