Next Ex-Dividend (24-Dec-09) OEF IVE IJT ISI IJK IJR IVW IJH IJS IVV IJJ

Dividend information (ex-dividend, record date, pay date) for IShares S&P domestic ETFs from their  Distribution Schedule

EX-DATE: 25-Mar-09 23-Jun-09 23-Sep-09 24-Dec-09 29-Dec-09

RECORD DATE: 27-Mar-09 25-Jun-09 25-Sep-09 29-Dec-09 31-Dec-09

PAY DATE: 31-Mar-09 29-Jun-09 29-Sep-09 31-Dec-09 6-Jan-10

iShares S&P 100 Index Fund (OEF) iShares S&P 500 Value Index Fund (IVE) iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Growth Index Fund (IJT)

iShares S&P 1500 Index Fund (ISI) iShares S&P MidCap 400 Growth Index Fund (IJK) iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Index Fund (IJR)

iShares S&P 500 Growth Index Fund (IVW) iShares S&P MidCap 400 Index Fund (IJH) iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Value Index Fund (IJS)

iShares S&P 500 Index Fund (IVV) iShares S&P MidCap 400 Value Index Fund (IJJ)

On to August 09 Options -- except for VIX

Thanks to the nice little rally last week almost all of my options were assigned. The only exceptions were a position in USO that I don't want to close out yet, so I rolled those to August 34s and I closed out a SPY position with 91 calls for a 90.92 credit--8 cents seemed like a reasonable price to pay for not having to worry about the market last Friday. In these bullish situations it is tempting to lament the loss of upside potential due to the short calls in the covered call positions, but I try to remember those flat periods where owning the equity doesn't net you anything.

Overall I see more downside risk than upside for next week because of the big run-up last week, but if I could consistently pick market direction I wouldn't need my day job! I probably won't write many August calls next week because August 22nd (the next expiration date) is a long ways away. Some things that are interesting:

• USO (Oil ETF) is relatively low, I don't see the price of oil dropping much
• VIX options expire on Wednesday. There was an interesting amount of premium on the ITM calls last week as the VIX swooned. I would hedge with VXX, even though it is behaving strangely (its "historic" relationship with the nearest S&P volatility future has been running at .39 to .395, away from its normal .41)
• Fidelity allows trading on weekly SPX options it appears. I would have to do a bear spread with the long side way out of the money--and long SPY, the effective underlying
• Colgate and Proctor & Gamble are going ex-dividend this week. The options probably have too much time value to be an effective hedge--might be interesting to hedge by going short on the the sector for a day.