Continuing from yesterday’s post, I’m now discussing the second trade completed this past Friday, part of three trades I’ve done for the October expiration period. In this case, I’d discovered that the premiums on AIG were huge, and that meant getting a decent profit while still being cautious. But was I too cautious?

[Read more →]

Last Friday, I initiated three new covered call trades using our GI portfolio. I’m getting more and more nervous that we’re going to have a downward correction soon, but I decided to gently push things one more time for October expiration given that it was only 3 weeks away. I also decided to purposefully try exploring a few different situations in making covered calls.

[Read more →]

This month, we had three open option positions waiting for September expiration, which was this past Saturday. I was still out on vacation then, so I’m just checking on things now. A quick login to TradeKing shows that we’re back to all cash, so clearly all three positions got assigned – our desired result.

[Read more →]

I’m just back from a 3-week vacation/camping trip without internet access, and am now catching up on finances. One of the first things I note is that ING Direct dropped the yield on the Electric Orange savings account to a 1.30% APY on Sept 9, 2009. This prompts me to do a quick survey of online savings account rates.

[Read more →]

As mentioned earlier, right after August expiration I began looking for new covered call opportunities. As mentioned earlier in this blog, one of my strategies is to look at the Dividend Aristocrats list for companies who will likely be paying dividends prior to next month’s option expiration, so that’s what I did.

[Read more →]