My account had another month of gains, but I was still far under-invested and missed out on what could’ve been more. Maybe I’ll get off the sidelines a little more on the next dip. I missed a good opportunity while the VIX moved higher a couple of weeks ago, but keep waiting for a bigger drop.
I ended April with a Net Liquidation Value (NLV) of $100,970.02 and a Net Asset Value (NAV) of $100,996.36 according to Interactive Brokers (IB) after finishing March with an NLV of $100,480.73. I had a gain of $489.29 (~0.5%) on paper for April and no realized gains since I only sold a new naked put in April, but didn’t close any positions. I received no in dividends in April since I’m still not long shares of anything yet. Quicken reported that I have an account value of $100,968.88, which is the same as what IB says I have after adding in the $27.48 in accrued interest that IB is crediting me for.
I’m 50.59% invested in this account, 9.74% more than the end of March and still a lot less than I should be. As I said last month, I am waiting on a correction, but will have to take some risk at some point, even if it’s with far out of the money naked puts. My divorce should be final in June and maybe that’ll help me get back in the risk game. I definitely have some kind of mental block against it right now and might as well try to blame the ex for something extra. (That’s a joke.)
This is my asset allocation in my IB account as of the end of April:
- Large-cap ETF: 0.0%
- Mid-Cap ETFs: 27.24% (includes long put that cuts risk)
- Small-Cap ETF: 23.57%
- 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, April 28, 2017:
- Dow Jones Return: YTD change +6.71%, 1-year change +20.90%
- S&P 500 Return: YTD change +7.16%, 1-year change +17.92%
- NASDAQ Composite Return: YTD change +12.34%, 1-year change +26.64%
- Russell 2000: YTD change +3.59%, 1-year change +25.63%
- S&P Midcap 400: YTD change +4.81%, 1-year change +20.46%
These are my returns according to Quicken through April 28, 2017:
- YTD Return: +0.97%
- 1 Year Return: +3.95% (annualized until I have a year of data)
The VIX ended the month at 10.82 and the VXN ended at 11.53. The VIX is 1.55 points lower than at the end of March and the VXN is 0.22 points lower than at the end of March. Both volatility measures finished April off their highs. Both volatility measures finished April off their highs that were hit on April 13, the day I sold my single naked put in April. Volatility is getting annoyingly low compared to the historical average, which might force me to buy protection instead of selling it.
I’m going to stop tracking the SKEW here since I’m not really using it much and haven’t seen much worthwhile data for my trading.