Jimmy Mortimer

In high school in the late 1990s, I built my first stock and options portfolios. In 1998, doing an online options trade took a lot of work. The first call contract I wrote tripled in value in a week. If something can go up that fast, it can go down as fast as well. From that early experience, I recognized that seeking to take prudent investment risks for respectable portfolio returns— rather than aiming for high-risk/high-return profits was to be the foundation of my portfolio management beliefs. It was also the best fit for my temperament as an investor.

I used my stock portfolio to write covered calls on S&P 500 holdings to help fund my education at Westminster College in Utah. (I also worked at Zions Bank as a Service Analyst. I finished my undergraduate degree with minimal debt.

In 2006, I joined Wells Fargo Investments as a Senior Trading Associate. In 2010, I joined Wells Fargo Advisors’ largest team in the inter-mountain region, where I managed client stock and bond portfolios. Simultaneously, I attended graduate school at the Heider School of Business at Creighton University, studying financial analysis and portfolio management.

As interest rates dropped ten years ago, many clients asked about relatively safe and liquid income alternatives to speculative bonds and annuities products. Strategies I then ran for Wells Fargo Advisors clients was a liquid covered calls strategy for income generation with $30 million in client assets.

The risk/return decision I made back in 2010 regarding returns I still follow today: Do not chase high yield, instead, accept receiving a 1%-2% premium from writing covered calls options contracts.

In 2023, we launched Solidarity Capital Management, an investment firm focused on a covered call options strategy to produce a high current income uncorrelated to typical core stock and bond portfolio allocations.