We were hoping to manage more of our positions today after the market opened higher, but the stocks across the board couldn’t hold and we have another sell-off close heading into the weekend.

Here are a few position updates but we have no positions to manage today.

NO ACTION

Cardinal Health (CAH):  55.70

Cardinal Health stock price has held up relatively well compared to the rest of the market. We were planning to roll our 20 May 58 call out if the stock price held or was higher today, but we’re down about 1.5% and I don’t like selling calls when a stock price is sliding.

Let’s be patient and let our 58 call expire worthless and we’ll sell a new call Monday or Tuesday if the market gives us an opportunity.

ACTION: No Action. Let the 20 May 58 call expire worthless.

HOLD

DOW Inc. (DOW):  67.05

It looked all week like our DOW 20 May 67 put would expire worthless and we would buy the stock next week ahead of the ex-dividend date (5/27). Either way … if the put expires worthless or we get assigned Dow stock … we are acquiring Dow stock at a better price than the beginning of this week.

ACTION:  No Action. Either our 20 May 67 put will expire worthless or we will take assignment of DOW stock at $67, earn the dividend next Friday and sell a covered call sometime next week.

TAKE ASSIGNMENT

ONEOK, Inc. (OKE):  62.84

This is the position that hurts. Natural gas prices are still sky high and OKE stock price was the beneficiary. The stock is getting caught up in the market sell-off and with monthly-only options, doesn’t give us a lot of room to roll our 20 May 70 put. We will have to take assignment and manage the position until OKE recovers again.

ACTION:  No Action. Take assignment of OKE stock at $70.

I have held off managing our two mining positions: Rio Tinto (RIO) and Vale S.A. (VALE). Their stock prices were down for the last few weeks and finally turned positive over the last couple of days. If we see higher stock prices from these two stocks on Monday, we will sell a covered call on both positions. Let your RIO 20 May 82.50 call expire worthless.

A rough week in the markets. No idea if we are close to capitulation and a bottom of some kind, so we’ll continue to manage our positions as best as we can. If there was some good news coming out of the last few days, Blackstone (BX) stock has held ground and with its stock price finishing higher at the end of this week. That could be a sign that the financial stocks are stabilizing and we may get a pause in the market. If we get another day or two of Blackstone stock trading higher, we will get back in and start selling calls.

Most of our Triple Play Income positions are in value stocks that pay a high dividend. They don’t go up as fast in bull markets or decline as steeply in bear markets … and we get paid quarterly dividends to help supplement the ups and downs in the market. 

Our 3 most volatile positions are in the inflation beneficiary stocks of CF Industries (CF), Rio Tinto (RIO) and Vale S.A. (VALE), and so far, we have collected double digit total income on those 3 positions in 2022. We will continue to take advantage of those positions and selling calls or puts until we get some real downward pressure.

Lastly, we are looking to add one or two new stocks to our portfolio but don’t want to be caught “catching the proverbial knife” by entering a new position that sells off hard. Let’s stay patient here and when we see some stability in the market, we can begin to add one or two new dividend stocks to our mix.

Have a good weekend.