LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

[growerVon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound I was up late last night, saw that the Chinese market dropped 7% and trading was halted. Woke up just now, and saw the Dow dropping 400 points or more than 2%. Fun time!

Get Bill Murray in here, this has been a repeat this week!

[Dash man]

Markets looking to calm a bit today...calm before the storm?


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[growerVon]

Bought a little more VTSAX Friday, out-of-band from my normal paycheck-aligned investing.

[papadad111]

We have yet to see serious capitulation. Just the grind lower ... I think we will see 1850 before we see 1950 ....


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[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by papadad111 We have yet to see serious capitulation. Just the grind lower ... I think we will see 1850 before we see 1950 .... Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

1850 doesn't seem so bad. It's 1570 I'm not particularly looking forward to, but it should be a great rebalancing opportunity, plus some tax loss harvesting.

[LOL!]

Since I've lost money on last Thursday's purchase of IVV, I bought lots more at the end of today once again. I got the money from selling VCSH. I can do one or two more rounds of this before I run out of money altogether.

[papadad111]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 1850 doesn't seem so bad. It's 1570 I'm not particularly looking forward to, but it should be a great rebalancing opportunity, plus some tax loss harvesting.

Agree. Interestingly dividend yields are coming up with the sell off and with interest rates so low I bet we see some interest in equities by the yield chasers - perhaps a bear market rally but we are oversold at 1900 -1925 with upside to 1975 then down to 1850..

The 1570 scenario is ugly indeed, and I hope we don't go there as I just don't have enough dry powder to take full advantage without upsetting my preferred overall AA ....

[LOL!]

My recent purchases started the day in the black, but with the steady downtrend all day today, things are in the red. This just motivates me to buy more.

I intend to buy some ETF in the US small-cap asset class because this asset class has dropped more than 15% since mid-August. I've got a couple of hours to see if the downtrend continues although things are up a little bit in the last few moments.

[LOL!]

Update: Bought some VBR a moment ago. I'm totally surprised that my limit order went through.

I'm submitting another buy order at an even lower limit price.

Update: And my 2nd buy order was filled. I'm going for another ....

And another update: My 3rd, 4th, and 5th orders for VXF were filled.

Watch out! Even though these are now in the black, there is still an hour to go.

[papadad111]

We had the upside earlier today and now looks like a slide down toward 1850. We fell through 1900 just a while ago

Powder is dry but going to start buying at around 1888. Which is about now ....


Feels like some capitulation ( finally) from what was supposed to be an up day. We need to see 1850 for a real wash out.

[LOL!]

I sold VCSH and BND (bond ETFs) today to get the cash to buy. They were both up a little bit today.

Also, I can unwind the VBR and VXF positions without "free-riding" nor wash sale possibilities at any time because I own them in other accounts from way back, so I have positions with long-term gains that I can sell. When I do realize the gains, I will offset them with my carryover losses, so I will not have taxes to pay.

And if they go down, I have more bond fund shares to exchange into equities, but VBR is up almost 1% from where I bought already. There, I've jinxed it.

[papadad111]

This volatility is awesome "fun" for trading. The 100-200 point daily swings are a better buzz to me than even the finest (pick your poison). ...

[Fermion]

Yes but my fun is crimped because my favorite trading stock, Gilead is down hard at the beginning of the year and I cannot buy it because of wash sale rules. I traded it up for a profit in 2015 but had a slight loss in the last trade on December 21. I need that loss to stay in 2015 for ACA reasons so if I buy Gilead now it will wash out that loss and move it to 2016.

Stupid wash sale stuff. I hate hate it. I could make a ton o money in Gilead right now.

[NW-Bound]

Just bought a bit of a 3x leveraged S&P ETF.

And for a longer-term holding, also a bit of a US telecom ETF which is a mixture of ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc... This has a dividend yield of 3.55%, which falls short of those from Mulligan's preferred stocks but I expect to get nice cap gains when the market is back to normal.

[papadad111]

Good suggestions NW. I'll have a look. I bought more vanguard dividend VYM yesterday just before the close too...

Been trading KMI calls this morning for a quick 1200 profit. Gas Grass and Ass money as we used to call it ...

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fermion Stupid wash sale stuff. I hate hate it. I could make a ton of money in Gilead right now.

Perhaps you can get another biotech or an ETF instead. The whole sector has been beaten up.

[papadad111]

Fear my onion. Why not go long a few far out dated options on GILD as an alternative ?

I gave up trying to manage our MAGI for ACA as a reason NOT to at least try to make some shekels in the markets.

In a few trades I figure I can cover all the family's ACA subsidy ( even after paying short term cap gains taxes) so why not do that. By March or April Ive covered the subsidy and back to working for myself again so to speak.

[Fermion]

I don't know if the call options on Gilead might be considered similar enough to the calls I sold in December to trigger a wash sale. I don't think different expiration dates would be enough to make them not "substantially similar"

The reason I like Gilead is it has a PE of 7.5 and a cash flow of around $30B a year.

[papadad111]

Don't let the tax tail wag the dog. Get in there with some moolah while GILD and rest of the market is on sale.

One for u and one for the tax man is better than none for you ... Gotta be in it to win it.

Upside in options right now may be the way to play for gain-max ... Or get the biotech ETF or options in that as alternative.

[Fermion]

If I lose the 2015 slight loss on my last Gilead trade to a wash sale in Jan 2016, I will go over the 400% cliff for ACA and lose about $2000 of subsidy that is coming to me.

Thus I would need to manage an option play this week that would net me more than $2000. Not an easy task without putting a lot of money at risk.

But I should have purchased the IBB, which has a significant exposure to Gilead. It is up 4% today. Oh well.

It does not have good options though....too thinly traded.