I was assigned 2 BP Jun08 75 Puts last Friday.  I expected to be assigned these Puts but this happened a day before they would have been assigned anyway.  So I was able to sell covered calls on them a day earlier.

I sold 2 BP Oct08 75 Puts for a net deposit of $290.50 in an IRA account.  My basis in these shares is now 71.90 after accounting for accumulated options.  I usually prefer to sell closer in options but did not do so in this case.  I wanted to sell the 75 strike and get a reasonable premium so I sold further out this time. 

I have a long term belief in oil and some of the oil stocks so I was a little aggressive when I originally sold the BP Puts.  BP has a decent dividend at .81 per quarter and 4.82% annualized.

This morning I BTC 6 DIVX May08 7.50 Calls, 2 each in my taxable account and 2 IRA accounts, for a net cost of $449.49 to each account.

I sold these calls in early April after watching the stock fall to the low 6 range.  It looked like it would languish there for awhile and the 7.50 Calls would be safe (expire worthless).  Then DIVX reported increased earnings and sales and it started to climb and actually gaped up at one point.  I was rather expecting that it would fall back again but to no avail.  The stock is at $9.44 as I write this and still methodically climbing to somewhere.  I these DIVX lots at various prices from 16.24 to 20.84 so am happy that the stock is recovering even though I took a hit on the options today.  If this continues I should be able to sell new Calls at the $15 strike price or better with a reasonable premium thus making my BTC today worthwhile.

I sold 2 MO Apr08 75 Calls for 140.50 in an IRA.

My basis is now 83.44 for these MO shares.  Since I have owned MO I have received spin off shares of KFT which I have kept and sell call on and I will also receive 200 shares of the new Phillip Morris International (PM) on Mar 28.  MO is already ex-date for the PM distribution so I expect its price will not be further effected by that anticipation.

MO is one of my “core” holdings.  It pays a good dividend at .75 per quarter but I expect that will probably drop some as a result of the PM spin off.  I also get a reasonable option premium on the calls if I continue to sell them out one month at a time.