Yesterday, near the end of the trading session I opened covered call trades in CVS and Merck as both stocks passed one of my screens. I sold Apr-30 $74.50 CVS calls which could provide an annualized return greater than 30% when the $0.50 dividend is included. CVS goes ex-dividend on April 22. For the Merck shares, I went with a shorter holding period and sold Apr-16 $77.00 calls. In both trades, I sold calls that were near the current share price rather than go a little further OTM since my Market Meter is still registering “Neutral”.

CVS

Merck