Investor's Opinion

Portfolio Update: Call Option Sold To Open

Published: 2010-08-19 20:46:00 EDT by Unknown

It has been a little over a week since my last post. Since then I have made a few adjustments to my stops and desired entries. My reason for posting is that one of them was triggered today. I sold-to-open a September 2010 $18 call option against my shares of the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV). The premium for that sale was about $45.40 after commission. That is a nice percentage gain Although it could have been better had I sold it a couple weeks ago instead of trying to sell the August 2010 $19 call option. The other end of this trade is that if I get called on it next month, I will also collect my capital gains on the underlying shares.

The stock EV Energy Partners, LP (EVEP) dived below the secondary trend line I mentioned in the forecast I made in my last post and is currently declining lower at a very slow pace. EVEP closed today at $33.23. I still believe it will continue to decline into the $32.50 to $30 range before turning back up.

The put option I bought-to-open against Capital Product Partners, LP (CPLP) hasn't been moving favorably for me. My current position went into the hole $20 the day after I entered it and it hasn't gone anywhere since then. The CPLP stock hasn't been moving much for the past week. It looks similar to EVEP in that it dived down below one trend line, but it seems to be dancing just above a much shallower secondary trend line that I expected it to break already. The weekly and monthly Stochastic and MACD indicators suggest that it is over-bought and should not be going back up much higher in the immediate future. However, the daily indicators are in the over-sold ranges. This suggests to me that if it doesn't break below this secondary trend line soon, CPLP will be basing at the current $8 level for about a month, eroding my position.

I haven't mentioned this position for some time, and it is about time I did. Maybe I will finally get it through my thick skull to let a looser go. It really does look like I again made a very bad move. Citigroup, Inc stock (C) hasn't been doing bad nor good for the past couple of months since it declined back in May of this year. I fully expected it to turn up a lot more a lot sooner. Unfortunately, instead of buying stock and selling call options against C, I bought 5 calls in expectation of better performance now that it has restructured itself and spinning off Primerica Inc (PRI). Oh well, wishful thinking. I am already more than 60% in the whole. My current forecast of C for the next four months until the expiration of the options is to almost break even at best. I'm so disappointed in myself. That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it. Disclaimer: See bottom of page. http://investorsopinion.blogspot.com

Labels: covered calls, opinion, option strategies, put options, stock strategies

Updated: 2010-08-19 21:46:37 EDT