AFL Cover Calls Assigned

As expected, I received notice this morning that my two AFL November $36 covered calls were assigned early and I was forced to sell my 200 shares for $36.00 before I could collect the dividend. At least IB doesn’t charge commissions on option assignments, so I saved a dollar on a bad series of trades that ended in a loss.  After the assignment I decided to go ahead and close my remaining AFL exposure and while AFL was trading at $44.30 I bought to close two AFL November $36 puts and paid $11.04 with commissions.  I didn’t expect these puts to be assigned on Friday, but for $11 I didn’t want to take the risk.

With the removal of these two puts and 200 shares from my account I have more cash to work with.  I’m not even fully invested now if everything else was assigned.  Admittedly I have exposure with some double ETFs, but on a margin view I have cash to spare.  I don’t have a lot of cash sitting idle, but enough that leaves me with a good bit of fire power if the markets continue this move of lower highs.

I didn’t make any trades last week in my taxable account and am not sure I’ll do much more until options expiration gets a little closer in a few days.  I have seven more options expiring this week and will be taking some more assignments.  My MVV puts will be assigned for sure.  My VNQ and UCO puts won’t be.  My DSX and VNQ covered calls might be, but it’s too early to tell still.  I’ll be shocked if my QCOM covered calls aren’t assigned since they are nearly $5 in the money now.  All of this shuffling around basically amounts to a high probability I’ll have even more cash to work with soon and the timing might not be any better to free up dry powder.  At the most, I’ll probably sell some farther out of the money puts, just so I have some more upside potential with a decent cushion before I take a loss again.