12 July Covered Calls Trades on Dividend Stocks
By Donald E. L. Johnson
Cautious Speculator
- Many dividend stock investors trade monthly covered calls on their stocks to generate options premium income.
- Most monthly trades end mid month. That means it’s time to create the July covered calls watch list.
- My 12 covered calls trades are shown and discussed below.
- I’ll add comments on the stocks, my trades and the markets in the comments section below as well as in updates as needed.
Dividend stock investors can enhance their stock dividends by selling covered calls options on all or some of the 12 stocks in my July covered calls watchlist and portfolio. All of these stocks were in the June covered calls watch list. Most of those 15 stocks expired last week, and most in this month’s list will expire on July 21 or 28.
Click on images and zoom in for better views.
Watch the comments on the Substack version of this article for reports on changes in the list.
The list of dividend stocks is designed to provide monthly options premium income and some diversity among the included stocks. It is assumed that covered calls trades are a diversification strategy for investors who also have portfolios of cash secured puts, more speculative stocks, exchange traded funds, mutual funds and cash.
The call options strikes that are above what I paid for the stocks include: Conagra Brands Inc. (CAG) , Dow Inc. (DOW) , JPM Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) , Kimberly-Clark Corp. (KMB) , Lincoln National Corp. (LNC) , Altria Group (MO) , J.M. Smucker Co. (SJM) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) . I’m hoping to have these stocks called so I can collect short-term capital gains as well as premiums and dividends on them.
Some call options’ strikes are equal to what I paid for them. They’re down from the purchase price but their cumulative net debits may be below the purchase prices. They include: Kroger Co. (KR) and Phillips 66 (PSX) .
Several stocks are down so much that the only way to get decent option premium returns on risk (RoR) is to take the relatively low risk that they will be called at strike prices below my purchase prices. If that happens, I’ll move on and won’t get back into the stocks for at least 31 days. That lets me avoid tax wash sales, which apply to stocks in tax sheltered accounts like IRAs as well as those in taxable accounts.
These dividend stocks include: Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) and Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) .
Depending on market conditions and what is happening to the stocks I follow, I’ll add trades during the month and report them in the comments section and periodic updates.
The average RoR on these 12 stocks is 0.81%, or about 10.81% annualized. The June trades generated an average RoR of about 1.13%, or about 15.26% annualized.
This is because market volatility is down. That depresses options prices. Also, the June covered calls trades were done on a lot of newly purchased stocks. This allowed me to sell them at the money, which generated higher options premiums returns.
Most of these equities are in IRAs. This allows a trader to take losses and profits without worrying much about taxes other than tax wash sales. If a stock sinks to where I think it’s a lost cause, I sell it and buy something that looks more promising.
Averaging down works sometimes and can make a disaster a tragedy.
Even most of the best high yielding dividend stocks sink in bear markets. So the strategy is to buy and hold these stocks until they’re called as long as the dividend are not cut and the covered calls deliver desired returns.
I have a couple of high yielding dividend stocks that have lost a lot of their volatility. Their returns on risk are tiny.
It’s almost impossible to write calls on them without risking having them called before I want to sell them. So I’m holding them until they become more volatile again and I can resume writing covered calls on them. Meanwhile, as I collect their dividends, their net debts continue to decline.
The stocks are Kinder Morgan (KMI) and Carlyle Group (CG) .
Every investor is expected to do her due diligence on the stocks and trade when prices look promising. No one can predict prices. All we can do is trade.
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On the date of publication, Donald E.L. Johnson had a position in: LNC-D. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
