I do try to finesse the entries so that I gain an advantage by waiting on either the shares or the calls, and usually that ends up working against me. But sometimes it helps, as in June 18th. I picked up a lot of gravy by hanging back a while.
The order (of the shares and calls) is not necessarily indicative of the order I executed the trades. I might record them in either order, even though I executed them the other way around. It's hard enough to find and record all of this, and I'm not trying to recreate it by the second. Although of course the basic strategy (opening both and then closing both) is recorded as it was actually done. Usually I open the shares first, and then the calls, but it could be the other way around. At times I have gotten greedy and traded the calls out in the middle of the trade, allowing the shares to ride naked before covering them with replaced calls. This is detailed, of course, if it was done. Results have varied (beneficial or not beneficial to me.) Many times I close the calls and let the shares ride for a few minutes to the remainder of the day. Occasionally I have closed all the shares and then re-opened them for a day trade, although I don't think I've done that without having ditched the calls first. The last thing I want is some depreciating calls hanging around, so I tend to get rid of them ruthlessly (there could be instances in which they increase in value, but I don't think I've encountered that in a while, or if so, I just looked the other way, because I didn't want to see what I missed out on, and had already moved on to the next trade.)
Here is a clip of the tab which you really should be reading if you want to follow along. The tab is right here, if you're having trouble finding it.
