A little while ago, I bought $800 worth of stocks and sold about $200 worth in call options against the stock. I think it was 200 shares and 2 contracts (so my options weren't naked).

That takes the price down quite a bit. It's sort of like getting 25% off in a way (once the options expired).

Now when I look at other stocks, I'm not finding this so easily. Usually it'll cover less than 10% of the cost.

So - what do I look for to find stocks that have options that will cover better (about a month ahead). I know that my first example was a stock that had a lot of news about to come out and a lot of people were buying puts against it. Is this why I could sell a call for so much?

What should I look for? It wasn't all time value because it was not even a month ahead.