We wasted yet another hour watching the season finale of The Sopranos last night. We went to bed pissed at such a pitiful ending to a show that had so many good episodes (not counting the last 2 seasons).Being disappointed with the last season of The Sopranos, we held back on watching this season so far and let Tivo hold on to them for us. We never could build up the energy to waste an hour. Finally this weekend we watched last week’s episode and then the finale. My wife blurted out F*(# before I could at the end when we thought our Tivo had cut off the ending that stopped either 2 seasons too late or 2 minutes too early. At least we’re out of our misery now and don’t have to go back and watch the others we Tivo’d. Enough of that.
I woke up to see that Nucor (NUE) has issued a profit warning. A month ago I bought NUE in my IRA and wrote about it here. Like our wise move in not watching this season’s earlier episodes of The Sopranos, I also had a wise move on my NUE purchase. I sold a covered call in-the-money. Although NUE dropped 6% at today’s opening, I’m still sitting on a profit and now NUE is off its lows. NUE did break through a key trend line and I’ll be watching closely through my July option expiration. If it can stay flat for the next month I’ll be able to get out completely with a profit or if I still like it I’ll be able to sell another covered call. If it starts to slide again, I might have to consider getting out with a small loss or buying my current covered call back and selling a new one, deeper ITM and/or farther out.
Technorati Tags: covered calls, investing, stocks, options, the sopranos
Hi Trader, I have been doing quite a bit of research lately looking for investment info/advice on line. Last night my wife told me to search for covered calls and I found Optionsbuddy.com. Good free listing there to look at. I used it and got risky buying 2,000 shares of ENCY at 4.73 to get the 5 stike call for June at .50. The stock is a hair down and I hope I don’t go broke on this bio/drug risky play. Technically, chart-wise, seems ok move for one week to me.
As far as the dow chart, something funny about inflation to me is that while it slows the economy because we have less to spend, sometimes we forget that inflation in a way fuels growth and greater heights in stocks, etc. by virtue of its ability to stretch and expand the economy and take us from where we were years ago to where we are and where we are going. That is my weird and humble opinion, but I think things will remain bullish and inflation is smaller-sized concern right now.
Also, anyone here heard of Bill Barrett, or 1stdaytradinginformation; or swingtrades.com; or redoption.com–i am looking at these guys info for 30 days; or harmontrading.com? Thanks. I searched online for options stuff, glad my wife finally reminded me to put in “covered calls” too. It’s a hairy online world out there and I appreciate the sanity here on this blog, but just looking for any words of feedback if anyone has it. I apologize if I listed a site wrong, right now its from memory since i am not at home. May ask about some more later if it’s ok.
Kadena, your comments are always welcome and I would love to hear from others too. I’m not familiar with any of those other sites. I agree with your thoughts on inflation. Without inflation, prices wouldn’t go up and employees would have a much harder time getting raises. With inflation, my wife and I can continue to earn raises and since we have a fixed rate mortgage on our house we can pay it down easier with the extra cash if we wanted to go that route. (Of course, the biggest raises come from changing jobs as I need to do soon.)
I think the big gray area is how fast should inflation go up. With a fast rise banks are hurt and it would be hard for companies to be taken private or just mergered/bought due to the increased cost of lending. With lower rates the buyer can finance a deal and pay it off easier with the cash flow from the acquired.