Showing posts with label T. Show all posts
Showing posts with label T. Show all posts

Monday, March 26, 2012

The End of Fear?

For sure the answer is no...but for now there doesn't seem like there's much fear out there. The risk on trades are happening. Folks are moving money out of bonds and into stocks. We've got money to spend but are patiently waiting for a correction or at least a healthy dose of fear. I'd like to write out of the money puts on Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson as they will be announcing dividend hikes soon. I also think Pepsico has stabilized and will begin rising to get it's PE more in line with Coca-Cola.

There's a chance the market will keep rising but I definitely won't enter into any trades until we have a day in the red. In the meantime patience is a virtue.

FYI other stocks I'm looking to trade are Altria, AT&T, Chevron, General Dynamics and Microsoft.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Profitable Trade: AT&T Covered Calls

Today in a traditional IRA our shares of AT&T were assigned so that the investor on the other side could capture the dividend. The entire set of transactions looks like this:

06/27/2011    Bought 200 T @ 30.889                                      -6187.79
06/27/2011    STO 2 Aug 20 2011 31 Calls @.53                       +94.50
08/01/2011    Dividend                                                           +86.00
08/03/2011    BTC 2 Aug 20 2011 31 Calls@.05                        -10.00
08/03/2011    STO 2 Jan 21 2012 31 Calls@.66                      +120.50
11/01/2011    Dividend                                                           +86.00
11/22/2011    BTC 2 Jan 21 2012 31 Calls@.05                       -10.00
12/02/2011    STO 2 Dec 17 2011 29 Calls@.38                      +64.47
12/19/2011    STO 2 Feb 18 2012 29 Calls@.59                     +106.47
01/06/2012    Sold 200 T @ 29                                             +5779.89

We made $130.04 in this series of of transactions. This equates to ~ 2.2% or ~4.1% annual. We're fine with this as we probably paid too much to enter the position and it was sitting there as dead money waiting for the dividend. I thought in December when the T-Mobile deal was falling through that the price would stay below 29. Oh well, I'll enter this position again at my price through the selling of puts. In this particular account we are sitting on a ton of cash, waiting for the next downturn to enter new positions.

Even though the profit on this was small, a profit still it was. I guessed wrong a couple of times but still pulled in enough income to pull a profit.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Trade Continuation AT&T (T) Covered Call

Today in a traditional IRA I continued the following transaction:

06/27/2011    Bought 200 T @ 30.889                                      -6187.79
06/27/2011    STO 2 Aug 20 2011 31 Calls @.53                     +94.50
08/01/2011    Dividend                                                           +86.00
08/03/2011    BTC 2 Aug 20 2011 31 Calls@.05                      -10.00
08/03/2011    STO 2 Jan 21 2012 31 Calls@.66                      +120.50
11/01/2011    Dividend                                                           +86.00
11/22/2011    BTC 2 Jan 21 2012 31 Calls@.05                       -10.00
12/02/2011    STO 2 Dec 17 2011 29 Calls@.38                      +64.47
12/19/2011    STO 2 Feb 18 2012 29 Calls@.59                     +106.47

With this latest transaction we have lowered our out of pocket to $5649.85 or $28.24/share. AT&T goes ex-dividend on January 6 with their raised dividend of .44/share. We might get called out but I doubt it since our expiration date is 6 weeks later.

We are recovering nicely in this trade after arguably paying too much for the stock to start. I wasn't religiously following the charts and only entering an investment at the bottom of the trade cycle when I entered this trade. Nevertheless if we collect the dividend our amount out of pocket will drop to $5561.85 or $27.81/share.

If we get called away in February and don't roll the position our profit will be $218.15 which equates to 3.5% or 5.3% annual. This is not great but it is still a profit on a stock that dropped in price from the time we bought it. I like the stock at cheaper entry points and have written some out of the money puts at the 27.5 strike price in other accounts.

AT&T Raises Dividend by only 1 cent...again


From Dow Jones: AT&T Inc.'s (T) board raised the telecommunications heavyweight's quarterly dividend a penny a share, or 2.3%, marking the 28th straight year of increases.
AT&T increased the dividend to 44 cents a share, with the increase costing roughly $59.3 million each payout. The company had $10.76 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of the third quarter.
Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said the company's financial discipline throughout the economic downturn has allowed it to pay down debt, invest to support more customer usage and generate strong cash flows.
"We know millions of our owners are individuals and they count on their AT&T dividend each quarter," he said.
Many companies have bolstered dividends lately, some to put accumulated cash to work, others to appeal to investors wearied by market volatility.
AT&T most recently reported higher third-quarter earnings driven by better-than-expected growth in wireless subscriptions.
AT&T shares were down 6 cents at $28.73 in recent trading.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Sold AT&T (T) Puts

Today with the DOW down 293 to 11503 and T down to 28.22 I entered into the following transaction in a taxable account.

STO 2 T Jan 21 27.5 Puts @.9              +168.45

I like to enter my income investments on down days. Check. For the recent past AT&T has found solid support at the 27 levels. If put to me our cost basis will be ~26.76 after commissions. At that price our dividend yield on cost is 6.4%. In addition, AT&T will probably announce a dividend increase in December with an ex-dividend date before our puts expire. Therefore, I expect our yield on cost to increase.

If these puts expire worthless our return is 3.1% which is 18.54% annual. For those who figure return on margin (ROM) the return on the margin requirement of $1059.61 is 15.9% or 95.14% annual.

AT&T is a stock we are interested in holding long term. If put to us (and we don't decide to roll the position) we will look forward to collecting the dividends and writing calls to lower our amount invested and increase our yield on cost.