The Blackstone Group (BX) pays a $0.30 quarterly dividend. Not much, but on a $15 stock it is 2%. With that in mind, I bought some BX two weeks ago at 15.47 and sold the December 14 call for 1.86. The down side protection was 12%, which you need for a volatile stock like BX.
Tomorrow is the ex-dividend day, so I was looking at the puts to see if the stock would be called away. Right now, the puts are trading for 0.55 bid, 0.6 ask. Since the dividend is 0.39 the stock won’t be called.
M & T Bank (MTB) is a horse of a different feather. It’s ex date is the Friday after Thanksgiving, so tomorrow, Wednesday, will be decision day for call owners. Right now the 60 call is trading 4.9 / 6.2 with the stock at 65.97 and the December 60 put at 0.6 / 0.7. The quarterly dividend is 0.70 per share. Looks like it will be called. I can try to unwind the position so that I don’t have to carry it tomorrow. There is no more juice to squeeze out of this orange.
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