My March options were mixed. I took an early assignment on my WMT naked put as I wrote about yesterday. I’ll also take an assignment on my XLB March $63 naked put. In the positive column, I’ll take a full profit on my GS March $265 naked put to give me a realized gain of $589.31. GS closed today at $267.60 compared to being at $271.34 when I sold the put at the end of January. I always love these trades when the stock falls and yet I make a full profit from the out of the money option. Another profitable trade was on TLT. I had a TLT call spread using the $125 short call and $128 long call for strikes. TLT was trading at $123.82 when I sold this combination and finished today at $119.82. My realized gain is only $157.56, but I didn’t pull any money to the side to cover this trade. To me, that makes it feel like I just earned an extra $157.56 for a very low risk position. My third profitable trade was on IWM. My one IWM March $159 naked put was in the money, but less than the $3.20 premium I received.
Since IWM wasn’t far below my strike, it allowed me to roll the contract in a calendar spread from March to May while keeping the same strike. While IWM was trading at $158.11, I bought to close one IWM March $159 naked put for $0.91 and sold to open one IWM May $159 naked put for $4.35. I received $342.75 net for the calendar spread. My realized gain is $227.70 for the March put. If this trade works for me through May, I’ll earn 2.81% or 16.05% annualized. IWM can drop 2.18% before I take a loss.
I didn’t have to buy back my GS March $165 naked put since it expired worthless, but while GS was trading at $269.00, I sold one GS May $265 naked put for $7.85 and received $784.31 after paying $0.69 in commission. If GS remains above $265 at the May expiration, I’ll earn 3.05% or 17.43% annualized. GS can lose 4.40% before I lose any money on this new trade.
WMT gained more than $1.50 today, so I opted to stay in the shares. I still plan to dump them eventually, but it wasn’t today. I’m waiting for the May option expiration contracts to be available next week before selling a covered call on XLB and will consider selling another out of the money naked put on it too.