This has been a busy week, but not so much for me.
It figures that on the week that the blog begins its apperance as an offerng by Amazon Kindle Subscription services that I would miss two days worth of blogging.
But only in America can you choose to pay for a subscription service to have a blog delivered directly to your Kindle when you could just as easily opt to not read the blog online.
And for free.
What really doesn’t figure is that there are actual subscribers. So, if you want to join that elite, august and confused group, just click here, SUCKAH.
First of all, special thanks to Tony Vahl of The Original Daily Skew for authoring a guest blog this week. I had enough foresight to arrange for that, but not enough to consider the fact that I might be somewhat under the weather. So much so, that I barely even made trades for two days and when I did, I think they were through the lens of a Percocet fueled analyst.
As if I ever practiced any form of analysis.
This marks my first weekly update and is intended to give readers an idea of what I am considering as we enter the coming week.
Since I sell covered calls and over the past month have found myself increasingly selling puts, I expect to have assignments each week and as a result typically have cash waiting to be invested Monday morning.
As result of option assignment this week I will find myself having lost shares of Goldman Sachs and picking up shares in Freeport McMoRan, Halliburton, Chesapeake Energy and MolyCorp.
In addition, cash will be freed up by the expiration of put contract sales on British Petroleum, Transocean and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. In all, about 20% of my portfolio will need to be replaced, but that’s actually much less than I’d been faced with each Monday morning for the past month.
As long as I believe that prices for my list of “Old Reliable” stocks is too high, I’ll continue looking for opportunities to sell puts, rather than picking up shares and then selling covered calls.
As word comes that there may be a settlement in the British Petroleum Guf oil spill I don’t think that I will be selling puts again this week, as the expectation is for a price rise. Unless of course the market reacts negatively to the fact that the US Government is not included in the settlement, in which case, it’s time to sell those puts again after the potentially bad news settles
Following the ridiculour rumor that Green Mountain would be the next stock entering the S&P 500 its shares reversed course and closed at session highs. I doubt that rumor will come true.
If it does, I may move to North Korea.
If it doesn’t, I expect another drop in shares and a good opportunitiy to sell weekly puts again.
Additionally, as volatility heads for hiistorically low levels, the expectation is for a sharp drop in the market, but expectations and reality often have a poor correlation. With volatility being low, options premiums aren’t as nice as I’d like, so I’ve migrated a bit more toward momentum stiocks, that carry the kind of risk that I really don’t like, but just like the Percocets, it’s easy to get addicted to option premiums.
I am thinking of two Double Dip Dividend plays this week. One in Home Depot (HD), which is on my “Old Reliables” list and the other on Cablevision (CVC), which isn’t, but is riding the Jeremy Lin wave.
Home Depot goes ex-dividend on Tuesday and offers weekly options, while Cablevision is ex-dividend on Wednesday and only offers monthly options. Remember, that to capture the dividend, you have to purchase the shares the day before the ex-dividend date.
I’m thinking of the possibility of adding Mosaic back to the portfolio. I had shares assigned a week ago at $57.50 and the shares closed right near that price on Friday. I usually expect a 1% ROI onthe weekly near the money or In the Money call contract.
I’m also looking at repurchasing shares of Boeing (BA) and possibly picking up shares of the energy ETF (XLE)
All of these great ideas are subject to becoming lousy ideas once the market opens.
In the meantime, I’m hopeful that the past couple of days of drops in precious metals continues, as I am inappropriately invested in that concept, still holding large positions in the ProShares UltraSHort Silver ETF, much of which is not hedged this month
If only I could figure out a way to have those shares go up in value along the the rest of the market I’d be in my own version of Buffettville.
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