On 8/18/08, I sold 3 S Sepo8 10 Covered Calls for a net deposit of $79.75 in an IRA account.  My basis for S is now 21.56.

S is not currently paying a dividend so it does not meet my general investment philosophy.  Unlike some other stocks I suspect that I will let S go when I get my basis below a strike price I can sell at.  I just don’t feel good about it.

S has been trading in a range between about 10 and about 7.50 for about the past 4 months.  Some might say it is building a base for a rise but I am not so sure.  I tend to think it is just muddling along.

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.

Yesterday and today I sold Covered Calls on the various stocks whose Covered Calls expired in Jun08.  I don’t think any of these require additional discussion as I have written about them in various previous posts.  Enter the stock symbol in the search feature to find them if you have an interest.

These transactions represent $1382.75 in cash flow in addition to those which I have already written about yesterday and today.  Here are they are with quantity, stock, expiration type, strike price, Call/Put and net deposit amount.

• 4 YHOO Jul08 25 Calls - 109.00
• 4 TBI Jul08 15 Calls - 89.00
• 7 AUY Jul08 15 Calls - 365.75
• 2 LEH Jul08 25 Calls - 312.50
• 3 S Aug08 10 Calls - 19.75
• 2 BAC Jul08 30 Calls - 84.50
• 3 CKR Dec08 15 Calls - 139.75
• 2 PM Aug08 55 Calls - 30.50
• 2 IR Jul08 42.50 Calls - 50.50
• 2 IMB Oct08 2.50 Calls - 20.50
• 2 GOL Aug08 15 Calls - 60.50

After making the list I guess I should say that whenever possible I prefer to sell options which expire in the next month.  Sometimes that just doesn’t work for one reason or another, usually because I want to sell the call at a higher strike price and/or want to get a larger premium.  That explains why some of these expirations are further out.

Also, after todays action I see I may have some some with a strike price a little too close.  I’ve been feeling a little bearish lately and generally am expecting prices to stagnate for awhile.  I’ll just need to watch them and perhaps roll some of them out if I really don’t want to have the stock called away.  The notable excpetion here might be YHOO.  I think I might be okay if it gets called away at 25.  Although, something might be going on because YHOO was up .59 today.  As always, time will tell.