Sold Covered Calls on MON, TDW and JOYG

I was waiting for the Santa Claus rally and then thought maybe he got lost and would come around for a nice end of the year present, but apparently the reality of our economic situation is still hanging heavy on the few investors who are in their trading seats this week.  Personally, I’m on vacation from work, but not out of town.  My wife and I are both taking time off to get stuff done around the house.  For me, that included checking out my account to see if I needed to make any end of the year trades.  I have taken more than enough losses for tax purposes.  I’ll be carrying over a chunk to write-off against next year’s expected gains and have more on the way with the losses I still have on paper.

I’m no longer trying to hold on to any of these losses for any reason, tax or emotional.  I’m just trying to get back in my groove now on making regular gains through options and some through the underlying stocks when assigned.  I sold covered calls on FCX and CELG last week and waited on the next round until today.  This morning I entered limit orders on three more and they all hit in the last 90 minutes of the trading day.

While TDW was trading at $38.65 I sold to open two TDW February 45 covered calls (TDWBI) for $1.45 each and received $278.50 after commissions.

While MON was trading at $67.73 I sold to open one MON February 80 covered call (MONBP) for $2.10 and received $199.25 after commissions.

While JOYG was trading at $21.72 I sold to open three JOYG February 25 covered calls (JQYBZ) for $1.40 each and received $407.75 after commissions.

For each of these trades I left enough room to gain around $1400-1500 on the underlying stock and option combined.  If any of these can rally enough to give me $1400 more than I have now I feel that’s probably a good spot to get out.  With all three of these I thought I should wait for them to rally, but that day hasn’t come yet and time value is wasting away each day, but not in my favor until now.  I had to go out two expiration periods to get the premiums I thought were worth the trades at the strikes I wanted.  Two months out has been my normal time horizon for the past few years, but changed with the increase in volatility lately.  I’m trying to move back to that time when I traded less and made more.  I’m not so sure they will necessarily go together for me as easily yet, but not trying won’t help much either I’m pretty sure.

I’ve raised my cash balance to $6,112.48 with these trades.  I’m getting closer to making new naked put trades, but still can’t find the right stock at the right price yet.  My search will continue as I try to stay more cautious than I was for the past 15 months.