As has been the case a few other times this year, I had no options expire today. I don’t even have any scheduled to expire next month. So, I’ll take the time to give another positions update. This is what’s in my account as of this afternoon.
- IWM: 200 shares long
- MDY: 200 shares long
- DIS: 100 shares long
- TLT: 1,300 shares short
- 3 TLT September $136 covered puts
- 5 TLT September $132 covered puts
- 5 TLT September $131 covered puts
I was tempted to buy back some of my covered puts today as TLT continued its price decline, but I decided to wait for it to fall below the intraday low from June 30, at $138.08. That price was the low for the week after the Brexit vote when TLT gapped higher two days in a row. I expect TLT to fall below my put strikes eventually and want to exit before I give up too much, but I’m also hesitant since I’ve been wrong about its timeline to decline for a while.
I also considered selling some covered calls on my IWM, MDY, and DIS shares, but they’ve become a sideshow in my account compared to TLT. Even if I sold IWM covered calls two months out in the hopes of adding in $5 per share, that’d be a gain of only $1,000 for me. That used to be a nice goal, but now I see my account balance fluctuate $1-2,000 per day due to TLT’s price movements. I should try to work the covered calls too, but will give it a little more time to work out more upside before I cap my potential returns.
I’m up more than $9,000 from my low last week, but I’m still far from break even for the year. I’ll continue to stay short TLT and long my other shares until I don’t see reasonable gains from either side.