The June options (which we wrote against Microsoft expire this weekend). Of course at any time I could have covered the short call and remained long MSFT and look to right another call and put. For whatever reason on this sheet I’ve decided to let the options and stock play out till the end. Barring a market collapse prior to Saturday, the Microsoft stock position will be called away if it hasn’t been already.

Not to shabby  😎  The very high annualized rate is due to the short amount of time in those positions. OK so let’s look for a replacement.

We have a utility and two REIT’s currently. I’d like to replace Microsoft with another blue chip stock that has a history of raising the dividend (A support under the market) GIS General Mills – a household name.

First a look at some fundamental and technical data courtesy of Bloomberg and Investors Business Daily:

• More information from: Bloomberg Data GIS
• IBD is Investors.com but you will need to be a subscriber to access the above.

Extrapolating the previous ex-dividend date and adding 3 to the month I come up with July 8, 2014 – not very far away.

For this example I’ve used the opening prices – yesterday. I always seem to use opens just to be consistent and for ease of tracking  😎  You may do even better!

Talking Points and Shilling Sees U.S. Deflation Risk, Weak Jobs Market:

The Fed Scenario That Could Catch Investors Off Guard (Short Takes)
Active Management Required (Robert Seawright)
The fortunes of forecasters are telling, so why do we still listen? (Episode)
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014 – MIT Tech Review (Global Macro)
Strategy Isn’t What You Say, It’s What You Do (HBR)
21 charts that explain how the US is changing (Vox)
Why Inexperienced Investors Do Not Learn: They Do Not Know Their Past Performance (SSRN)
Chinese Companies Have Racked up $14.2 Trillion in Debt –more than any other country on the planet (Quartz)
The Long Truce (Talking Points Memo)
Chartfest: The Nation’s Economy, This Side of the Recession (NYT)
How the Insurance Industry Sees the Climate Change (LA Times)
Two Kinds of People You Should Never Negotiate With (HBR)
Steve Forbes Tells Washington Post Readers to ‘Thank the Billionaires’; Op-Ed Backfires Spectacularly (MarketWatch)
Retirees Suffer as $300 Billion 401(k) Rollover Boom Enriches Brokers (Bloomberg)

Shilling Sees U.S. Deflation Risk, Weak Jobs Market

HAVE A GREAT DAY!