Trade Alert: Closing out Citigroup position

On 1st Sept, I saw some weird action in Citigroup. While I was overall bullish on the name, I thought that its best to get out for now.

I watched it closely for a while and it was clearly struggling and selling off. So, I just unwound my covered calls sold a couple of days back for a small loss (notice my broker getting rich on the commissions) and then I turned around and immediately sold all 300 shares for a decent profit.

Now, one can argue as to why I closed out all of my position and I will agree that this almost qualifies into the ‘Stupid Trades’ category but i wont put it there.

I was just uneasy on Citi and just closed out the entire position. the desicion was based on the fact that I had only about 58 dollars in downside for 300 shares worth about 1200 dollars. Citi was clearly struggling and I thought I was risking a lot of money. So just get out and relax. This will make me sleep well during the night

Trade Alert: Adding to C position and selling covered calls in C

On 27th Aug, I added to the Citigroup position and sold 3 covered calls for Citigroup, collecting some premium

Here are the details

OPEX: August 2009 Options expiration

I had a nice and healthy August options expiration with 6 positions being called out on.

Some of the positions I was not so happy on getting called out but at this point I really don’t care as I am more happy that my strategy seems to be working.

So, this is my first Options expiration update on the blog and I will create a new category for this.
I plan to do a full review of the portfolio at every opex and think in terms of how to effectively manage the positions for next opex.

So here are some profit numbers we have coming out of Aug 09 options expiration

As of Aug opex, I will get called out on 6 positions,

$C : Citigroup
We have 250 shares in the portfolio and will get called out on 200 of them as the covered call we sold for $4 strike is in the money and we will be left with 50 shares in the account. A few thoughts that come to my mind here are to buy 50 more and continue with selling covered calls. I looked at $C chart for some technical levels and I think its prudent to wait for a slight pullback to buy 50 more shares. I will post some tech analysis on C and will put this on my watch list for next week.

Trade Alert: Selling $C covered calls Aug $4 strike

Selling 2 Covered calls for $C Citigroup

8/10/2009    Sold    -2    C HW    CALL CITIGROUP INC $4 EXP 08/22/09    $0.2    6.25    $0.01    $33.74

Collecting 33 bucks in premium.

I have 250 shares so even if $C runs, I would get the upside on 50 shares. I would like to close this position and open one in $XLF instead.

Lets see if this gets called out at Aug expiration.