Today, 8/27/10, I sold 8 S Jan11 5 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $183.89 in an IRA account.  My basis for these S shares is now 9.98. .

I wrote the following in earlier posts:

S&P has a 12 month price target of $5 for Sprint.  Jim Cramer recently featured Sprint on his show Mad Money.  He has a thesis that Sprint stands a very good chance of benefitting from an upcoming iPhone release that should allow Sprint to provide service for them.  At least that is what I understood him to say.  Jim expects Sprint to report better cash flow and that will cause analysts to upgrade it which in turn will cause it to rise.  He suspected a move to over 5, possibly to 6 in the next few months.  You can see some of his comments at the following link.  If the link does not work directly just cut and past it into your browser.

http://www.thestreet.com/video/10733498/mad-money-recap-sprint.html?puc=_yahooplayer&s=1#79531631001

Since then at least part of Jim’s thesis has come true.  S&P has already raised its 12 month price target to $6.  Sprint is apparently experiencing slower customer losses and appears to benefit from a planned 4G wireless rollout.  Even today, with the DOW down about 183 points as I write this, S is up .02.

Now, in August, S&P has a 12 month price target of $6.50 while MarketEdge has a price opinion of $4.45.  The stock closed down today at $4.00.  Most of the analysts that I can see have negative “sell” type ratings on Sprint.  So, I just decided to go ahead and sell these Covered Calls at $5 and wait and see what happens.  I may need to try rolling them out before Jan11 expiration.

S paid a small dividend (2.5 cents) up until December 2007.  It has not paid a dividend since then and I am not sure if or when they will resume.  Today I do not consider S part of my core holdings, mostly because it no longer pays a dividend, I am still content to hold it and collect option premiums to reduce my basis and one day expect to exit S at a profit.  I Sprint does resume dividends one day, and before I sell it, I will re-evaluate whether or not to continue holding it.  I doubt that I will repurchase it if I no longer hold it at that time.