Texas Proud said:
From Whitestick...... his return...
2005 69.3548%
2006 60.9524%
So, you lose all credibility with me with just those two numbers above...
It is either your math that is bad or you really really think you earned that amount... if you think you earned it.... I have a bridge for sale.... slightly used...
Ah! Finally! someone saw the joke. I do not pretend that this is correctly done, I only took the simplest math exercise as requested, of taking the beginning account number, subtracting the difference from the end account number and dividing that number by the beginning number. I made NO attempt to clean it to reflect what I believe that the total return should show, which is to include and exclude withdrawals, additions, unrealized gains, losses, premium income due to other factors, etc. That was simply a frustration reply to the request.
As to some of the reasons for the higher numbers, the totals include puts as well as call writes, some amount of covered calls against some margined stock, and an occasional mistake when I sold a naked put only that had some really high premiums, and I never completed the transaction by buying the underlying stock and selling a covered call. That was pure luck that it closed out higher and expired worthless, without having to commit more then potential margin funds, which of course I didn't have to pay for, since I didn't exercise. Even a blind squiral finds an acorn occasionally.
I also had some stock that I transferred in at a long term hold, with a very low basis cost, and sold the call at one strike above the then current selling price, before getting called, which resulted in extremely high percentages.
I consider those anomolies and should not be included in the total returns calculations, when I back all of that trash out, thats when I get that 41% number over two years, that I referred to earlier. Now if you want to discuss the validity of that 41% number, which when you divide by the 2 years, gives an appoximate 20.5% annualized, I'll be glad to defend that as "pure" and reflective of actual results.
This is why I use yield for each closed position, and measure against that.