Inflation continues to be the story weighing the stock back down into Bear territory. We had a sharp sell-off Friday after the CPI report came in with higher-than-expected inflation numbers and selling is heavy again today.

We were hoping Friday’s sell-off would give us a chance to roll a couple of our in the money positions out and up this week, but today’s trading has almost all of our positions trading lower.

There is one trade position we can manage to our benefit today.

TRADE ROLL

IBM (IBM):  135.57

IBM stock price has held up while many other tech stocks have melted down since December. It also reinforces IBM’s strategic move from the IT infrastructure and services business into the cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) game. Sales are up, profits are getting growing and the company has plenty of cash to cover its quarterly dividend.

We took assignment of IBM stock at 136.00. The sell-off over the last week gives us a chance to roll our calls out and up one strike to pick up more capital gains.

ACTION:  Roll the IBM 17 Jun 136 call to the 1 Jul 137 call for a net credit of around 0.90 to 0.95

Buy to close IBM 17 Jun 136 call

Sell to open IBM 1 Jul 137 call