August 27th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
On 8/20/08, (I’m only a week behind now 
) I sold 2 LEH Sep08 20 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $44.50 in an IRA account. My basis for LEH is now 69.10.
Since I am so underwater you can guess that I do not want LEH called away. I continue to chip away at my basis each month while collecting the dividends that LEH pays. It’s not great in relation to my basis but the .17 per quarter is about 5.06% based on current valuation. If only my basis was closer to the current price of 14.78 where it closed today.
August 17th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Here are the results for the options that I still had outstanding when the markets closed on Friday, 8/15/08. I had four Put assignments and 22 Calls across multiple accounts that expired allowing me to keep all of the option premium. The 22 Calls are summarized by stock across accounts resulting in 16 stocks being represented in the following list. I will begin to sell Calls on these stocks starting tomorrow.
| Stock Symbol |
Option Symbol |
Call/Put |
Bought / Sold |
Strike
Price |
Number of
Contracts |
Result |
| AUY |
AUYHC |
Call |
Sold |
15.00 |
10 |
Expired |
| BA |
BATM |
Put |
Sold |
65.00 |
2 |
Assigned |
| BAC |
BACHG |
Call |
Sold |
35.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| BP |
BPHM |
Call |
Sold |
65.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| CCJ |
CCJHH |
Call |
Sold |
40.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| DIVX |
QDWHB |
Call |
Sold |
10.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| DSX |
DSXHG |
Call |
Sold |
35.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| FNM |
NJWTJ |
Put |
Sold |
10.00 |
4 |
Assigned |
| FRE |
FRETB |
Put |
Sold |
10.00 |
2 |
Assigned |
| FRE |
FREHB |
Call |
Sold |
10.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| GGC |
GGCHA |
Call |
Sold |
5.00 |
11 |
Expired |
| GM |
GMHC |
Call |
Sold |
15.00 |
12 |
Expired |
| GOL |
GOLHC |
Call |
Sold |
15.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| LEH |
LYHHE |
Call |
Sold |
25.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| MO |
MOHM |
Call |
Sold |
22.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| PDS |
PDSTX |
Put |
Sold |
22.50 |
2 |
Assigned |
| S |
SHB |
Call |
Sold |
10.00 |
3 |
Expired |
| TIE |
TIEHC |
Call |
Sold |
15.00 |
2 |
Expired |
| VCLK |
QCSHW |
Call |
Sold |
17.50 |
2 |
Expired |
| YHOO |
YHQHE |
Call |
Sold |
25.00 |
4 |
Expired |
July 28th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Last Thursday I said that I would probably be able to finish documenting my trades after July options expiration. Well, as you may have surmised, life intruded in my plans. I’ve got a couple of free hours now so maybe I can finish today while watching CNBC and my portfolio. So, here I go…
On 7/23/08, I sold 2 LEH Aug08 25 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $130.50 in an IRA account. I am still way under water on LEH with a basis after options but excluding dividends of 69.32. LEH is trading right now at just over $16. LEH has paid a dividend of .17 per share per quarter for the past two quarters. It was .15 for the two quarters prior. The current rate is 3.67% annualized.
I am not quite sure what I think about LEH. I am a bull by nature so tend to think that LEH will be okay in the long term and will be a profitable trade for me, eventually. As you may have noticed in my recent writings I have developed a “chip away” philosophy for those stocks that I am underwater. I am chipping away at LEH.
