I pulled out another small gain in May and the broken record continues as I lament being under-invested still. On a positive note, I finally filed for divorce last month and it’ll be final in two weeks from today. I’ve held back on some of my personal investing as I’ve been distracted with filing paperwork, but it’ll be over soon and I plan to be able to refocus. While I still believe we should get a correction this summer, I’m less certain than I was earlier and know I need to take more risks than the small exposure my account has currently.
My account ended May with a Net Liquidation Value (NLV) of $101,343.31 and a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $101,367.61 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after finishing April with an NLV of $100,970.02. I had a gain of $373.29 (~0.37%) on paper for May, compared to the 0.33% gain for the Dow and the 1.16% gain for the S&P 500. I had $189.22 in realized gains from My IWM May $138 naked put, my only closing trade. I received $30.00 in interest, but no in dividends in May since I’m still not long shares of anything yet. Quicken reported that I have an account value of $101,336.32, which is the same as what IB says I have after adding in the $31.29 in accrued interest that IB is crediting me for.
I’m 50.12% invested in this account, 0.47 percentage points more than the end of April as I failed to push harder into more exposure. I’m not sure where I’ll add risk next, which is probably why I haven’t done it yet, but at least I know I’ll have to change my MDY position since my ratio spread expires in June. I’m also considering another DIS naked put since it’s down and I have none right now. European stocks are up and I have no international exposure either. I could have a few good trades just getting my allocation reestablished.
This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of May:
- Large-cap ETF: 0.0%
- Mid-Cap ETFs: 27.14% (includes long put that cuts risk)
- Small-Cap ETF: 23.49%
- 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, May 31, 2017:
- Dow Jones Return: YTD change +7.47%, 1-year change +21.16%
- S&P 500 Return: YTD change +8.66%, 1-year change +17.47%
- NASDAQ Composite Return: YTD change +15.16%, 1-year change +25.29%
- Russell 2000: YTD change +1.48%, 1-year change +20.36%
- S&P Midcap 400: YTD change +4.30%, 1-year change +17.16%
These are my returns according to Quicken from February 1, 2017 (when I established new account post-separation) through May 31, 2017:
- YTD Return: +1.4% (not annualized)
- 1 Year Return: +3.95% (annualized until I have a year of data)
The VIX ended the month at 10.41 and the VXN ended at 12.94. The VIX is 0.41 points lower than at the end of April and the VXN is 1.41 points higher than at the end of April. Both volatility measures finished May off their short-lived mid-month highs and only slightly above their ridiculously low intra-month depths.