My account gained a little more in March, but I took it easy overall due to other events in my life. My soon-to-be ex-wife and I sorted out everything and engaged an attorney to write it up for us. Now, we’re in the proofing stage and will file soon, which will open up more investing time for me. I also just got back from a week in Cuba with friends on Saturday. I highly recommend going if you can handle living with a few different ways of life. The people were great and I got the much-needed break from work that I wanted.
I ended March with a Net Liquidation Value (NLV) of $100,480.73 and a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $100,589.85 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after finishing February with an NLV of $100,200.02. I had a gain of $280.71 (~0.3%) on paper for March and a realized gain of $229.90 from my IWM March naked put that expired worthless. I received no in dividends in March since I’m still not long shares of anything yet. Quicken reported that I have an account value of $100,568.40, which is the same as what IB says I have after adding in the $21.45 in accrued interest that IB is crediting me for.
I am 40.85% invested in this account, 13.59 percentage points above where I was at the end of February, and far from where I need to be. For the immediate future, I don’t want to get too heavily exposed still. The market still has room to correct some before I get bullish again, but might sell some further out of the money puts to get a little cash flow working for me. I’m still in the camp with those who believe any sell-off won’t last long, so I will get my head around the risk before long and make some new trades.
This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of March:
- Large-cap ETF: 0.0%
- Mid-Cap ETFs: 27.37% (includes long put that cuts risk)
- Small-Cap ETF: 13.73%
- International: 0.0%
- Individual Stocks & Other Sector ETFs: 0.0%
- Bonds: 0.0%
- Short ETFs: 0.0%
According to Morningstar, here’s how I compare to the major indexes (including dividends) through the month’s last trading day, March 31, 2017:
- Dow Jones Return: YTD change +5.19%, 1-year change +19.91%
- S&P 500 Return: YTD change +6.07%, 1-year change +17.17%
- NASDAQ Composite Return: YTD change +9.82%, 1-year change +21.39%
- Russell 2000: YTD change +2.47%, 1-year change +26.22%
- S&P Midcap 400: YTD change +3.94%, 1-year change +20.92%
These are my returns according to Quicken through March 31, 2016:
- YTD Return: +0.61%
- 1 Year Return: +3.39% (annualized until I have a year of data)
The VIX ended the month at 12.37 and the VXN ended at 11.75. The VIX is 0.55 points lower than at the end of February and the VXN is 1.85 points lower than at the end of February. Both volatility measures finished March off their highs. Volatility is still on the lower side of the historical average, which doesn’t help those of us who like to sell options as a source of income or growth.
The CBOE SKEW Index finished March at 138.31, 6.33 points higher than the end of February. The SKEW rose to a monthly high of 154.34 on March 17 and 152.93 on March 20 – the days on either side of March expiration. The mid-month spike in the SKEW seemed to coincide the slight dip in stocks more than foreshadow much of it.