Month End Summary - November 2008

I continued my horrid slide to new lows in November, but I found a glimmer of hope over to end the month with a massive rebound.  My account briefly fell below the balance I had in my account at the beginning of 2007.  That meant that all of the monthly deposits I sent in to TD Ameritrade for 18 months ending in July of this year were all gone along with the $18k I have in capital gains last year.  To say I was down about it and flat out ashamed that I let it happen would be an understatement.  I was warned by a few readers to cut my losses and try again later.  I didn’t listen.  Instead I let my account fall from around $59k at the end of last month by almost 50% in just over a little more than two weeks.  At least I didn’t throw any new money at my issue, yet.

Call it paralysis or patience, but I stuck with it and rallied almost 50% from my lows.  For those who like percentages like I do you know that if you have $100 and lose 50% your new balance is $50.  If you gain 50% from the new low you only have $75.  Thus I ended November 2008 with a balance of $46,509.37 according to TD Ameritrade and $47,018.17 according to Quicken.  I didn’t take the time to see what hasn’t settled/downloaded yet.  It’ll even out next month.

Here’s how I compare the major indexes:

• 12 month Return: -57.60%
• Year to date: -62.35%
• Annualized Since 4/8/07 (blog’s beginning): -44.08%
• Deposits for month: None

According to Morningstar, here’s how the major indexes have done over the past 12 months:

• 1 year S&P 500 Return: -35.44%
• 1 year Dow Jones Return: -29.57%
• 1 year NASDAQ Return: -39.70%
• 1 year Russell 2000: -35.25%
• 1 year S&P Midcap 400:  -36.99%

The VIX ended the month at 55.28 and the VXN ended at 56.05.  We’re off the highs of mid-November when the VIX almost broke 90.  I still think it’s a great time to be selling options and again think the trick remains to figure in which direction the markets could move.