Wow. We should be getting used to this but it’s never fun to end the week with successive days of stocks selling off. There really has been nowhere to hide in this market … stocks across the board are down including our dividend players. 

Best thing to do now is have patience. At some point we will get a market bounce and even a potential “bear market” rally down the road that we can take advantage to trade a little more pro-actively for premium.  

ACTIONS:  No actions to take today on any of our positions. Let all call options expire worthless which will give us an unusually high number of stocks uncovered going into next week. That’s ok. We need to take a pause, and let the market stabilize and even find positive direction. If we get any kind of bounce, we will get back in and start selling covered calls.

Here are updates on a few of our positions:

Blackstone (BX) 82.80: Blackstone stock price got hit big this week. The company sits in the middle of 2 hard hit sectors … finance and real estate, however, higher interest rates will eventually play into Blackstone’s lending business down the road. No need to try and sell a call at the current price level … this is the kind of stock that can rip higher in any kind of short-term “bear market” rally.

Cardinal Health (CAH) 65.42: We already rolled our 70 put down to the 69 put in CAH this week to take assignment and earn the dividend (ex-dividend on 9/30). We can look at selling a call early next week. Overall, healthcare stocks are holding up better than almost any other sector during the selling.

CF Industries (CF) 92.87: We rolled our puts down and out 2 weeks but not far enough. Fertilizer stocks are down big today. We’ve said all along that CF as a commodity stock and inflation play is subject to volatile swings. We’ve collected a lot of income from this position and there is plenty of premium to manage around this latest drop. Fortunately, we have another 2 weeks to manage this trade.

Gilead Sciences (GILD) 62.83: Gilead stock price is down today but like other pharma and healthcare stocks, GILD was not hit as hard. If we get any kind of bounce early in the week, we can sell another covered call.

Philip Morris (PM) 91.73: Even Philip Morris, a defensive stock, is down almost 5% today. We can let our call expire worthless and wait for the ex-dividend date on Tuesday (9/27) to earn 1.27 per share. 

It’s Friday after a challenging week in the market. Best to take a deep breath, relax and enjoy the first day of fall and the weekend. We will be back early next week with another update.

Have a good weekend.