Sold ITRI June Covered Call

On Friday I pointed out my regret for not closing out my ITRI position when I had a chance to exit for a few bucks.  That bit me a little harder this morning as ITRI fell deeper than Friday’s close.  I didn’t wait very long this morning before trying to sell a covered call on my new 100 shares.  My first limit order didn’t hit as ITRI was still on its slide.  I only waited a little more than 30 minutes into the trading day before deciding to sell my call while I could get a decent price.  While ITRI was trading at $53.97 I sold one ITRI June $55 covered call for $2.25 and received $223.99 after commissions.  I’m still not sure if I’ll add another put to go with my 100 shares and covered call.  The June $50 strike puts don’t look too bad.  Leaving a high limit order in place could be a decent move to try to catch a dip (like today’s).

I considered selling a May call on Friday since the June contracts weren’t posted yet and even debated it again this morning, but decided June worked well for my needs.  If ITRI ends in June at the exact same price as where it is now I’ll still have an annualized return of 24.01% based on the premium alone.  If it gets back to $55, where I bought it and where my strike is, I’ll have a 35.03% return from the price where it was when my trade hit.  ITRI can fall 4.08% more before I take a loss on it and that doesn’t even include the premium I took in for the naked put that was assigned.  Although I was thinking about the May contract for its better annualized return I like the bigger cushion from the June contract along with the longer horizon to allow some of the excess funk to work itself out.  With what seems like less time on my hands lately, selling the extra month out helps to take one thing off my plate for May at least.

I was planning to sell some new UCO puts today, but am going to wait at least until tomorrow.  I might regret not getting an order in today, but didn’t want to try to catch that falling knife.  UCO is down big from its highs of the past couple of weeks and until it starts to find more sure footing I have a hard time getting in at these elevated prices.  At some point (probably soon) I’ll change my mind and at least take a new partial position.  I didn’t get around to selling new calls on VXX either.  I want to give it a little more time to see if we can get a better spike before I make my trade.  Instead of selling a call, I’ve thought about selling my shares and keeping the long puts to try to make more on further deterioration.