Conservative option strategies, what did you buy or sell today?

[fenders53]

(11-04-2021, 03:48 PM)Dividendwayfarer Wrote:

(11-04-2021, 02:43 PM)fenders53 Wrote: The XOM trade was fine IMO.  Selling calls on XOM worked for years.  We never know.  I sold XOM puts the past few weeks on dips.  Over time the less volatile stocks work out.  It's a percentage of successful trades game.  

The QCOM trade was awful.  Not because it didn't work out, but the risk reward was never their.  For about 1/3% premium you forfeited the right to any real upside on the earnings announcement.  Had it fallen 10% instead you were insulated from only 1/3%.  Still bad option sell.  Something further out in duration and strike might have been better.  Hard to protect yourself from a 10%+ move.

Don't give up but maybe stick with some lower potential stocks that won't break your heart until you get some repetitions in.    This gets easier with time.

Great points. I have also been selling puts after my shares got called away (all of them expired so I kept the $$). Though with the trend, I wonder if it is actually better to hold the stock and collect dividend. My investment philosophy will still be buy & hold quality stocks while collecting dividend. 

I plan to hold QCOM long term and with their peg ratio they still have a ton of room to grow.  I now even consider buying back the call on QCOM. At least I can keep the shares and do cap loss harvesting. It’s painful!

Sometimes you have to make the best of it.  Will it bother you if you do that and QCOM dips $5 next week?  Sometimes doing nothing is best while you regroup.  I often own more than 100 shares and it takes some of the sting away.  I'd probably just sell puts and wait for it to pick you up.  You can't fix what already happened.