Did covered calls on Oil — bought USO at 37.19, sold-to-open May 37 calls at 1.02 for a net investment of 36.18. Created a bear spread on VIX options today. Betting on VIX going down is forecasting that the market in general will be flat or positive. I sold-to-open June VIX 16 calls at 10.26, bought June VIX 32.5 calls at 1.88 for a …
Unlike the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Index, there is no way to directly invest in the VIX index. I’m sure some really smart people have tried to figure out how to go long or short on this computed volatility index, but there’s just no way to do it directly. Instead, you have to invest in a security that attempts to track VIX. None of …
One alternative to a covered call is a bull spread. You give up some premium in exchange for significantly reducing your downside risk. I bought SPY 118 May calls at 3.91 and sold 121 May calls at 1.82 for a net debit of 2.09. SPY was right at 121 at the time, so the the 121 calls were right at the money–which is the maximum …
If you have general questions about dividends see Top 10 questions about dividends. One strategy for capturing dividends is to buy the stock/ETF and then sell calls against that security as a hedge—a covered call. The value of the short calls moves in the opposite direction of the stock/ETF, providing a hedge. There are three major variables with this strategy: 1. How many days before …
Did covered calls on SPY, buying SPY at 119.70, selling to open April 119 Calls at 1.11. Net investment/ breakeven is 118.59. Ended up doing sequential market orders because combo order execution was not working well at Schwab. Has the feel that actual humans are involved in the process–not a good thing with a moving market.
