Category: Account Summary

I gave back a lot of profits this month and I’m glad the month is over, if only that also guaranteed my losses were done.  Actually I feel pretty good about my holdings right now and still expect to finish the year up nicely.  For the first time since I started this blog, a major index is beating me (the Dow ($DJI), by about a 1/2 percent).  If I annualized my losses for this month, I’d finish the year down …

I finished off of my highs of the year and I still pulled out a 26.27% return for all of 2007.  I’m really happy with my account for 2007.  I always like to compare myself to the indexes, especially the S&P 500 since I’d likely have a large part of my portfolio in an index fund if I wasn’t actively managing my investments. I love that I beat the major indexes by so much.  Below is a list of what the …

I’m still happy with my returns even after coming off the lofty highs I rode for most of the year. I never claimed I’d be able to maintain such rediculously high annualized gains as much as I’d like to do. What I have claimed I could do and continue to do is beat the major indices over the long term. In fact, I’m killing them still. My year to date returns are three and half times better than the S&P …

Today is an important day to remember this, a gain or loss is not realized until you exit your position.  I’m taking a beating today - down 3%, but only on paper.  Out of the 17 positions I have open right now, 11 are down, but I haven’t sold any of these.  That means I’ve taken no losses.  When I went through one of my sanity checks to see how I’m doing in real terms I …

I thought this was cool.  Last night I went back for the past six quarters (it’s counting up through yesterday, 11/6, as this quarter) in Quicken and charted my average annualized return per quarter. The quarter ending 9/06 is when I first started getting back into selling options after focusing in on family and my career and trading for a year on Intrade’s predictive markets.  I charted the monthly returns at first and they were all over the place.  I only had …

October was another good month for me in the markets as I maintained my 35% return over the past 12 months.  On top of the quite nice gains I had, my wife and I cut expenses at our house tremendously.   Almost everything we buy goes on our Amazaon Visa which gives us points towards stuff on Amazon. (Hint to family members reading this, expect your Christmas gift to arrive from Amazon.)  Our bill, which we pay off monthly is typically around $3500-4000.  The …

September was very very good to me.  I increased my account balance by approximately $7,500 including the $4,000 deposit I made at the beginning of the month.  It’s crazy to see that kind of gain in one month for me with the type of investing I do.  I’m all about the slow and steady, but a lot was down at the end of August for me, including the two long positions I’m holding.  Those two came back to life and all of …

In a strange way I liked August’s price action.  We got the correction we’ve been overdue for and got a good bit of panic to enter the market.  I took the opportunity to reload on some positions and plan to make another strong run for a couple of months.  There’s enough fear in the market now to think the downside risk isn’t too far from the upside potential.  That’s the kind of market I prefer for writing options. 

If it’s a raging …

I’m taking some serious losses on paper this week.  When this happens I go back and review what I have and where it is in a profit/loss view.  Do I have room to handle the roller coaster or not?  In this case I found I do.  This is a very crude look at what I have in play now, not counting the beatings I’m taking on my long NYX and MRO positions.  The labels could be better, but I’m sure …