This morning I BTC 2 AMD Aug08 5 Calls and STO 2 Jan08 6 Calls for a net deposit of 71.01 in my taxable account.  My basis in these AMD shares is now 16.35.

AMD has been moving up recently and moved above my Aug08 strike price at 5.  As you see above I am underwater on AMD so don’t really want it called away just yet.  I probably will eventually because it does not meet my current criteria for only trading in stocks that pay dividends.  Of course that is subject to revision as my basis decreases and I evaluate the return to be made by option premiums against a lower basis.

This current trade, in addition to creating new cash in my taxable account, increases my potential return by $1 per share if I should get called away early.

On 7/21/08, I sold 2 AMD Aug08 5 Calls for $22.50 in my taxable account.  I now own these AMD shares at 16.70.

Just like some of the other stocks I own, I continue to chip away at my basis and will someday these shares will be called away.  AMD is something that I should not own because it does not fit my general investing model which includes paying dividends.  My recollection is that I got involved with AMD as a result of a Jim Cramer show a couple of years ago.  I have learned to be a little more discriminating when listening to Jim.

I am still catching up from being on vacation for 17 days so I am still a little behind posting recent activity in my various accounts.  I think I can post everything today.

July has been an okay month for me.  Or was it?  I own 200 shares of IndyMac Bank (IDMC) and used to own 200 shares of Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC).  Of course the CFC is now 36 shares of Bank of America (BAC) which is a little better than CFC. 

As I wrote earlier, I was assigned 300 share of Yamana Gold (AUY) in an IRA account which I am okay with.  As document earlier I rolled out several Jul08 options that I did not want to be assigned or called away.  All of the rest of my Jul08 option positions expired worthless allowing me to keep all of the option premiums.  Here is the list of those options that expired.  Note that the Total Received column may be higher because it is the result of rolling out a prior option.  For example, the AGU Put was originally sold in Dec07 and rolled out three times before it finally expired in Jul08.  The actual net received was 8.72 per share or $1744.  Still not too bad though.  Also, where there are multiple rows for a stock each row represents a separate trading account.