December 2013 Options

Happy Holidays Everyone,

December proved to be an interesting month to say the least, but it goes to show how options can still help out in adversity.

CSCO and F both had a rough month on revised guidance, each having a modest drop over the course of a couple of days.  Being that I have a larger portion in both, the cov'd calls at the strike prices I want to be above were not as lucrative as when the price of the stock is closer.  (Ie around 22.50 for CSCO  (which now has risen back) and F in the 16.75 range).  That being said I had to sell some longer running cov'd calls so my monthly total wasn't as high as it could be (they will be expiring in Jan) but I still managed to make $1393.26 of profit.

SWHC also had a strong month, which is normally a good thing, but I was in a $13 Dec 23rd covered call, with my stock avg cost of $13.55.  So even after the .30c premium on that one, I took a couple hundred dollar hit when I had to sell them with .25c loss per share (1200 shares)

                                                  

So that brings my total for 2013 to $33,790 (aprrox) of profit on options (short term).   I am pretty excited/pleased with that as this is my first true year of doing them.  I made many, many less "rookie" trades (ahem mistakes) this year, than when I started in mid 2012, and now that I have a comfort level with what I'm doing, I'm looking very forward to many years of success and increasing yearly totals.

2014 looks to be a great year and I have some goals as well as new guidelines I am going to post about, but that will be after the new year.   Enjoy the New Years celebration and we'll catch you in 2014.

Nov 2013 Options

November was quite a busy month, with 5 Fridays in the month it meant an extra week of weekly option trading, even if Thanksgiving week was included in there.

For Nov, I was able to generate $2972.58 in total option income, which I'm very pleased with.  Was hoping to break the $3K mark, but that is a number that I'm sure will be hit in the future.  Overall the options, along with some of the short term capital gain I saw from the options (Citigroup -C, in particular), it turned out to be a very profitable month.  As indicated by purple, I kept ALL option earnings in the accounts for the month. (Didn't take any as profit to use)

Including my Nov options income, my yearly total from options (short term) so far is: $32,667.00.  The options, along with the short term capital gains from the stocks made Nov a $4724.00 total profit month.

Here's hoping that December will be just as successful, until then Happy Holidays!