U.S. Steel had an unbelievable day! Up $3.47! I did not make a trade this week because U.S.Steel (X) was down most of the week and I have so much riding on this holding. If you keep up with “Main Street beats Wall Street” you know I own 10,000 shares of the stock, my only position. I’m in the stock at $35.73. Before I get into my 2017 strategy I’ve been trying to get out of half of my 10,000 shares. It’s just too much! This week the stock has been down as low as $30.60, very scary! As I said before, for every 10¢ move in the stock my account moves $1000. When the stock was down to $30.60, as Trump would say, my account was down bigly (or big league, no one knows). With a very good earnings report and the Trump administration’s plan to invest $1 trillion into infrastructure, I had faith. I guess it took the analyst a day to digest the earnings report because today the stock was up $3.47. At the lower stock price I wasn’t able to sell a worthwhile option. Today I placed an order to sell 100 contracts of the $36 Call for 10¢ to expire tomorrow. I figured let me grab $1000 if I can with a Strike Price a little higher than my purchase price. If assigned I’d make a little on the stock sale. At 3:30 it didn’t look like I was going to get executed on my order so I shut down my computer and ran a few errands. I returned home and opened my computer to see how the day ended and I was surprised to see I was executed on my 100 contracts 2 minutes before the close. With the stock at $34.80 at the close I’m looking pretty good for tomorrow. This trade is a 1 day Covered Call on 10,000 shares of previously owned stock so I give it a Risk Factor of 1. Here’s the order:
Sell to Open 100 X 2/3/17 $36 C @ 10¢ (+$1000)
With this being only a 1 day Call let’s watch tomorrow how the week ends. With the stock on a big roll today I’m leaning toward wanting the stock up again and getting assigned. This will clear out my account with a great start to 2017 and I can get into my “2017 Challenge” I’ve been talking about.
Steve
The Options Coach