Selling Call Options, properly entering them

To say the Quicken is not elegant handling options would be an understatement. I've been writing covered calls, uncovered puts and the like for many years. Here's my approach:

Let's take covered calls as an example:

Opening Transaction: Sell 10 DELL JAN 30's at $2.00 Enter: ShtSell "1000 Dell JAN 30" (DLQAF)" at $2.00/share less any commissions and fees. Quicken will calculate an amount and put it into the cash portion of your investment account. (Approximate amount is $2,000.00)

Closing Transaction : Buy 10 DELL JAN 30's at $0.15 Enter: CvrSht "1000 Dell JAN 30" (DLQAF)" at $0.15/share. (Approximate amount will be $150.00)

At this point you should have no shares of "Dell JAN 30" (DLQAF)"

If the option expires worthless, it is very important that you enter a closing transaction with a price of $0.00/share for the 1000 shares (10 options). It is equally important to enter the same closing transaction if the stock is called away from you.

Quicken's database of stocks do NOT include options so you will jump thru various hoops to enter the stock symbol that you're using. Just enter it manually.

It is important that you enter these as "short sales" first and not as a "sale" since you don't have the corresponding security in your account to "sell."

Hope this helps.

Email me directly if you need more help.

stevedell at comcast dot net

Does Q track the intermediate value of the short position ?

It seems to- One point - if you use the "online" "compare" you will find that that report is wrong in some cases. It does not match either the holdings download from the broker or your Quicken file.

Then we're almost reassured ?