The chart below shows the daily prices for the past three months on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (aka $DJIA, $INDU, $DJI) after the index closed for the week at 19,963.80 on Friday, January 6, 2017. The Dow has gained almost 9% since the election as animal spirits took over trader sentiment for a month and…
End of the Year Summary – 2016
December was another strong month for me in a year that ended with a loss in my account. The way I traded TLT (without hedges) forced me to take losses when the market temporarily dipped even though my longer-term outlook was correct. The old Keynes adage fits in here (paraphrased) that the market can stay wrong…
End of Year Clean Up
I used today as a house cleaning day. Since I’m sitting on a year with realized losses that are greater than my capital gains, I decided to close all my positions that had a gain rather than drag the gains into 2017. I’ll still have more than the $3,000 limit to right off and will…
Options Expiration – December 2016
Today was the ex-dividend date for MDY and someone decided to assign my shares a day early so they could take advantage of the dividend. After closing at $104.69 yesterday, my one MDY December $290 covered call was assigned and I sold my 100 shares of MDY for $290.00 while I took a full profit…
Sold MDY Naked Put for March
Going into today’s 2:00 pm Fed rate decision, I expected a quarter point rate hike, as did practically all of Wall Street. They telegraphed it very clearly and did not disappoint. I entered a limit order for an MDY naked put at the money on the high side of the fairly wide bid/ask prices. My…
Sold QQQ Naked Put
After waiting for many months, I realize I should’ve waited even longer before selling covered calls on my IWM and MDY shares. Both calls are trading in the money now. The good thing about that is I can start selling more naked puts with less risk of losing on every position when the market eventually…
Wrote DVY Naked Put
As I mentioned a couple of times recently, my goal is to have is to have a less volatile account for the next few months. After the dust settles in my personal life, I plan to ramp up my risk again. Until then, I’m planning to use lower volatility ETFs for my at the money…
End of the Month Summary – November 2016
November was an amazing month, but for those of us who were short bonds, it was even better. I finally exited my TLT position in full as the price plummeted. I could’ve made more by hanging on and rolling my puts lower, but decided the easy money was made and I didn’t want the risk…
Finished TLT Position
The last of my TLT limit orders hit this afternoon and I am finally completely out of my long series of TLT trades. While TLT was trading at $121.40, I bought to cover 500 shares of TLT at $121.40 and bought to close five TLT December $130 covered puts for $8.94. The combined order sold…