June was a dud month for my account – partly because the market was wonky and also because I was out of the country for half of it. I lost a few dollars in June, basically splitting the difference between the S&P’s 0.48% gain and the Dow’s 0.59% loss. I have some trading to catch up on, but I am just getting back to my accounts today after beginning with my clients’ accounts the first two days after I returned and got my work brain started again. My AAPL and FB naked puts don’t have a lot of time value left and I need to roll them out and up. My GS covered call could be rolled out and down since most of the time value has eroded there too.
My account ended June with a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $101,664.02 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after ending May with a NAV of $101,669.25. I had a loss of $5.23 (less than 0.01%) on paper for June and had $141.76 in net realized gain from my only closing trade, 5 long UUP puts. I received $79.51 in interest ($13.11 more than last month) and $159.98 in dividends (WMT, XLB, and GS). Quicken reported that I have an account value of $101,598.39, which a penny less than what IB shows due to a rounding difference left over from last month and the $65.62 in interest accruals IB is crediting for me.
I’m only 89.64% invested in this account, 0.38 percentage points below the end of May. With $10,553.42 left uninvested, I’ve left some room for missed opportunities, but was glad to have the buffer while I was in Greece and not checking my account often. Since the S&P 500 is down approximately 3% from its June high (reached the day before I left town), I’m happy to have that cushion and won’t wait too long to put it to work, along with rolling my FB and AAPL puts as mentioned above, unless I see a real catalyst to push stocks lower for longer.
This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of June:
– Large-cap ETF: 0.0%
– Mid-Cap ETFs: 0.0%
– Small-Cap ETF: 15.81%
– International: 3.93%
– Individual Stocks & Other Sector ETFs: 70.31% (pretty much large cap really with AAPL, ADI, FB, GS included here)
– Bonds: 0.0%
– Short ETFs: 0.0%
According to Morningstar, here’s how I compare to the major indexes (including dividends) through the June’s last trading day, June 30, 2018:
– Dow Jones: YTD change -0.73%, 12-month change +16.31%
– S&P 500: YTD change +2.65%, 12-month change +14.37%
– NASDAQ Composite: YTD change +8.79%, 12-month change +22.31%
– Russell 2000: YTD change +7.66%, 12-month change +17.57%
– S&P Midcap 400: YTD change +3.49%, 12-month change +13.50%
These are my returns according to Quicken through the end of June 2018:
– YTD Return: +1.66% (not annualized)
– 1 Year Return: +6.47%
The VIX ended the month at 16.09 and the VXN ended at 20.88. The VIX finished June 0.66 points higher than the end of May. The VXN finished 4.10 points higher. The VIX peaked on June 27, when it hit an intraday high of 18.19. The VXN peaked the same day at 23.17. Both volatility measures remain far from extreme readings in either direction. This setup allows both option sellers and buyers to find opportunities for new trades without a skewed risk/reward ratio pushing them into uncomfortable territory.