On Wednesday, 9/24/08, I BTC 4 ALSK Oct08 15 Puts and STO 5 AUY Jan09 12.50 Puts for a net deposit of $138.01 in my taxable account.

I did something a little different with this transaction by trading puts for one stock for puts for another.

I have decided that I do not want to buy any more ALSK.  Although it does pay a dividend (.215 per quarter for about 6.83%) the option premium has not been consistent enough for me and, more importantly for rolling out, the bid/ask spread has been too wide to make for easy roll outs.

I had a second objective here which is to reduce my potential assigned liability (or leverage) in my taxable account.  This transaction allowed me to reduce my potential liability by $1000.  Every little bit helps at this point.  I am going to search for more of this type of roll out so I can continue to reduce my margin leverage.

On Monday, 9/22/08, I sold the following Covered Calls for a net deposit of $1049.50 in my taxable and various IRA accounts.

10 AUY Oct08 12 - My basis varies from 6.24 to 11.50 for these shares.

4 DF Oct08 25 - My basis is 33.48 for 200 and 34.28 for the other 200 shares.  I don’t expect these will exceed the strike price but will roll out if they do.

2 GOL Jan09 10 - My basis is 24.12 for these shares.  I sold to far out so that I could get a little more premium without the strike being too close in because I don’t want this called away just yet.

2 TIE Oct08 15 - My basis is 29.21 for these shares.  I doubt that TIE will get to 15 but I will roll these out if it does.

2 VCLK Oct08 12.50 - My basis is 22.95 for these shares.  I will roll these out if VCLK exceeds the strike price.

4 YHOO Oct08 21.00 - My basis is 22.73 for 200 and 24.16 for the other 200 shares.  I will roll these out if, by some chance, YHOO is exceeding the strike price as we near expiration.

2 CCJ Oct08 30.00 - My basis is 35.25 for these shares.  I will roll these out if CCJ exceeds the strike price as we near expiration.

2 AA Oct08 32.50 - My basis is 28.64 for these shares.  I will probably roll them out if AA exceeds the strike price as we near expiration.  AA pays a dividend and is a raw material producer so I have a tendancy to want to hold on to it.

And that is all for Monday’s trades.

I’ve gotten a little behind again, but not too bad.

A couple of days ago I BTC 2 AUY Sep08 10 Puts and STO 2 Jan09 AUY 10 Puts for a net deposit of $83.01 in an IRA account.  My basis for these AUY shares would now be 9.21 if put to me today.

I almost didn’t do this roll out.  I eventually expect to add 200 shares of AUY to this account.  A couple of things pushed me over the edge.  The price of gold and thus AUY had been declining (AUY was up 1.01 today to 8.57) and I have been increasingly nervous about the market in general and wanted to generate some additional cash and lower my basis in AUY in case I did end up owning it.