Closed MON Covered Call, Again

For the second time I took a round trip ride on Monsanto (MON) covered calls.  Last week I closed my covered call on MON and then sold the same covered call as MON rallied.  I sold the second MON covered call near the high of the day and saw it nose dive after that.  I would have saved more money by dumping my shares then, but didn’t, so I have to go with what I did.  This morning, while MON was still on its way down and trading at $72.71 I bought to close one MON March 80 covered call (MONCP) for $1.30 and paid $140.74 with commissions.  That gave me a realized profit of $298.81 from this call option trade.

The (ugly) list below shows the slowly lowering cost per share due to options for me on MON.  My average cost per share for MON is now $69.96.  It’s trading at $71.71 as I finish writing this near closing today.  That means I’m sitting on an overall profit for the series of trades and have no options on it.  So, I could still lose on it or could end up making a lot more.  I’ve done a lot of trading to get nowhere basically, but I’m not down and that’s big these days.

Date/Time                                         Description                                        Amount

08/19/2008  09:30:51                         Sold 1 MONVC @ 4.3                          $      419.25

10/02/2008  09:48:04                         Sold 1 MONJU @ 2.75                          $      264.25

10/02/2008  09:49:27                         Sold 1 MONVO @ 4.9                          $      479.25

10/20/2008  00:00:01                         Bought 100 MON @ 100                       $(10,019.99)

10/21/2008  09:34:23                         Sold 1 MONKU @ 5.5                           $      539.25

10/23/2008  09:36:45                        Bought 1 MONKU @ 3.2                       $     (330.74)

10/23/2008  09:43:36                         Sold 1 MONWL @ 2.6                          $      249.25

10/29/2008  09:59:38                         Sold 1 MONKU @ 5                             $      489.25

12/29/2008  14:29:19                         Sold 1 MONBP @ 2.1                           $      199.25

01/12/2009  09:40:31                         Sold 1 MONNN @ 2.5                           $      239.25

02/20/2009  15:51:00                         Sold 1 MONCP @ 4.5                           $      439.25

02/20/2009  15:51:00                         Bought 1 MONBP @ 0.1                       $       (10.75)

02/24/2009  09:38:12                         Bought 1 MONCP @ 2.4                       $     (250.74)

02/26/2009  10:34:08                         Sold 1 MONCP @ 4.5                           $      439.25

03/02/2009  10:41:12                         Bought 1 MONCP @ 1.3                       $     (140.74)

This trade summary does not include earlier naked puts I sold that were not assigned.  I started with the naked put which ended up being the option that assigned me the shares that got me into this.  MON is right near the bottom end of its trading channel that started a month ago.  I’m expecting a bounce, so I didn’t sell another lower strike covered call yet and didn’t buy a put for protection yet.  I might regret waiting, but will take my chances.  If/when MON rallies again I might buy a put the next time instead of selling another covered call.  As always, that’ll be a game time decision.