Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Haven't been very active lately, but I am going to go ahead and roll out the MSFT calls from last week another week. With so little volatility, there wasn't much premium and they barely covered commissions, but I don't want to dump the stock yet.

• Buy to Close: 1 MSFT Feb 10 2012 30.0 Call @ $0.52
• Sell to Open: 1 MSFT Feb 18 2012 30.0 Call @ $0.56

The Numbers

• Cash: +$4
• Short Option: -$4

Hahahaha...Bite me MSFT!

Isn't that awesome! Once again Microsoft is running higher and my greed yesterday is going to bite me again. This time it was the employment report this morning. Might be time to lay off the covered calls until this bullishness in the markets fades a little. If the calls I sold yesterday are still in the money towards the end of the day I'll roll them forward a week or so. I'll update this post if I do.

Update: I rolled the MSFT calls out one week on Friday afternoon.

• Buy to Close: 1 MSFT Feb 03 2012 30.0 Call @ $0.28
• Sell to Open: 1 MSFT Feb 10 2012 30.0 Call @ $0.44

The Numbers:

• Cash: +$16
• Short Option: -$16

More MSFT Calls

A couple weeks ago I got a little greedy with the Microsoft covered calls, but I'm going to try it again.

• Sell to Open: 1 MSFT Feb 03 2012 30.0 Call @ $0.11

MSFT closed the day just $0.05 away from the $30 strike, but I feel that Microsft(and the overall market in general) is a little stretched to the upside and due for at least a pause. These expire tomorrow, so even if it jumps a bit tomorrow, it shouldn't run up too much and even if the option gets exercised, it should be minor. Last week, even with earnings giving the stock a huge boost, it was still only a minor loss.

The Numbers:

• Cash: +$11
• Short Option: -$11

MSFT Update

The other option expiration update I had was the Microsoft covered calls. This one wasn't as simple. The market love MSFTs earnings last week and the stock price raced up past the strike price Friday morning. I had a chance to close the call at breakeven early in the day, but decided to put in a limit order and let things play out whichever way and deal with it today. Well, MSFT kept plugging higher all day and the stock got called away at $29. Since I wasn't ready to end this trade yet though, I repurchased the stock this morning. Luckily MSFT has been dropping today and I was able to repurchase at $29.46. With the $0.14 option premium on the latest call, that means I'm only missing out on $0.32 share. Not what I wanted when I sold those most recent calls, but that happens with covered call positions sometimes. I am going to continue to track this as a single trade.

• Sell 100 shares MSFT @ $29.00
• Buy 100 shares MSFT @ 29.46

The Numbers

• Cash: -$46

ECA Update

I meant to write about updating my expiring options last week, but was out of town until yesterday and didn't have a chance to put it together. The Encana naked puts have gone away from me since pretty much day one and are significantly under water. I rolled them again and got very little premium even rolling it out all the way to July. If these are still deep in the money in July and the premiums aren't there, I will look at letting the stock get assigned to me. If I can only grab $0.30 in premium, I'm probably better off collecting and reinvesting the dividends.

• Buy to Close: 1 ECA Jan 21 2012 27.0 Put @ $9.53
• Sell to Open: 1 ECA Jul 21 2012 27.0 Put @ $9.87

The Numbers

• Cash: +$34

Microsoft Calls

I've gotten a nice little pop in the price of Microsoft, so I'm going to take advantage and sell another covered call against my shares. Stocks seem a little anxious to move higher these days, so I'm going to keep this one short and sweet.

• Sell to Open: 1 MSFT Jan 21 2012 29.0 Call @ $0.14

Once again this isn't much money, but it's only a week away and we've got some room to spare with MSFT just above $28 these days.

The Numbers

• Cash: +$14
• Short Option: -$15

All That Glitters

Let's give gold another shot. Gold is below both it's 120-day and 200-day moving averages so it's technically in bear mode, but I'm willing to take a shot that it's exhausted it's downside momentum for the time being. Just like last time, I'm going to use the same triple-leveraged ETF(DGP) with a tight stop. For now I'm going to use a 5% soft trailing stop. I bought this morning at $50.86/share. If DGP breaks it's 5% trailing stop(about $48), I will take another look at the technical picture and decide whether to give it some more room or not. Regardless of what happens with that, I will keep a hard 10% trailing stop and sell if it hits that. On the upside I'm looking for gold to at least go up to $1,750. That's about 10% on the upside which would be approximately 30% gain since I'm using the 3x leveraged ETF.

• Buy: 50 shares of DGP @ $50.86

The Numbers

• Cash: -$2,543
• Long Stock: +$2,543
• Available Margin: -$1,500