Taking a position on trees and beer
The updating of the weekly trend analysis will resume next week, after I’ve returned from vacation. So far, however, the action in the major indices has given little reason to think that the trend has changed from the upward direction it signaled two weeks ago.
Last week, Weyerhaeuser (WY) – one of the stocks I was assigned during the most recent options expiration – cooperated nicely by rallying early in the week, prompting me to sell some August 65 covered calls against it, bringing my net purchase cost for the stock down to about 61.75. Last week I also sold some August puts on Anheuser Busch (BUD) – one of those long-term “oversold” value stocks I follow.
In a similar vein, I’m also hoping for a near-term opportunity to sell puts against one or two of the pharmaceuticals – like Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY), Pfizer (PFE), and Merck (MRK) – which have been weak lately. Otherwise, I’m continuing to look for additional put-selling (and call-selling) opportunities wherever they may appear among the many stocks I’m tracking in my watchlists.
