TheStreet.com: Covered Calls Saintly During Market Tumult Says Snowden Lane’s Clinton
September 2015
The VIX, or the so-called fear index, spiked above 40 in August, yet it has since fallen to 23 as the market’s turbulence has subsided. Jesse Clinton, financial advisor at Snowden Lane, said it was the perfect time to profit from a covered call strategy. ‘The covered call index is up about 3% this year while the S&P is down about 3%, so there is a big difference there in terms of writing these calls and getting some protection from the volatility,’ said Clinton. Aside from profiting from the surge in volatility, Clinton has also been done well for his clients by owning cyber-security stocks this year. The headlines about corporate hackings has caused money to stream into the PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (HACK), which is up 3% year-to-date. The HACK owns companies like Fortinet (FTNT), Imperva (IMPV) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW). ‘Cyber-security is where a lot of money is going, where a lot of the IT budgets are going and probably where the future of technology will be,’ said Clinton. He said he is also bullish on the U.S. consumer and he is betting on banks like BB&T (BBT) as a proxy.