LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

[LOL!]

Sold BIL (1-3 month T-bill) and bought MTUM (US large-cap momentum) to restore my equity allocation from selling VTSAX a couple days ago. 558

[COcheesehead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! We have IRAs and 401(k)s at different brokers rather than at a single broker. For example, a traditional IRA at WellsFargo and a traditional IRA at Vanguard. An obscure advantage of multiple accounts at different financial institutions is that you can get around frequent trading restrictions and trade settlement issues easily. For example, suppose you own VCSH in his IRA and VWO in her IRA. You need to buy more VWO, so you sell VCSH and free-ride the cash to buy VWO. A day later, you need to sell the VWO you bought, but you cannot since the first buy has not settled. So you sell VWO out of the other account. Or you sell a Vanguard (or Fidelity) fund and they say you cannot buy back into it for 60 days easily. So you simply buy back in by using a different account not at Vanguard.

Those trading restrictions are in place to keep me from myself.
Buyer's remorse can be costly.

[NW-Bound]

And I bought more semiconductor and biotech ETFs.

I have been waiting for them to go up for me to sell some covered-call options. They went down. Darn!

So, I held my nose and bought more. Less than $25K worth, but enough to be able to tell myself I bought low. Does that mean I will have to sell even lower, throwing good money after bad?

[LOL!]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Does that mean I will have to sell even lower, throwing good money after bad?

Nope, it means you will have to buy even more if they go lower, but it is probably still throwing good money after bad.

[NW-Bound]

Stock AA is at 74% now. I said I wanted to reduce stock AA to 60%, but found it difficult to do so, being a stock lover. I kept buying back what I sold when it's lower, or found something else to buy.

I guess 74% is still better than 100%, like some posters here do.

[Oz investor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Stock AA is at 74% now. I said I wanted to reduce stock AA to 60%, but found it difficult to do so, being a stock lover. I kept buying back what I sold when it's lower, or found something else to buy. I guess 74% is still better than 100%, like some posters here do.

i am close to 100% for the same reasons you are heavier in stocks than you would prefer .

however ( US ) interest rates are rising the numbers might tilt my way next year

[NW-Bound]

I bought to close out 7 call option contracts, netting me $1006.60 to be exact. Left to be worthless on the expiry date of 10/19, they would get me another $157, but I wanted them off the book.

Minuscule gain, compared to what I have lost in the last 2 weeks. Oh well, I would have lost $1006.60 more, if I did not do these options.

Now, only if the market please go up some so that I can sell call options again.

[LOL!]

Today is the kind of day that I really like. 211

Sold more BIL and bought more MTUM since I am losing my shirt with MTUM. It is down about 3.8% from yesterday's close.

I may buy something else before the market closes and will update here.

[LOL!]

The last 5 minutes of today things dumped, so I had to buy more equities. Sold VCSH (short-term corporate bond) and bought VTI (total US stock).

[NW-Bound]

Surely, you bought. But how much did you buy? $500K worth?

I also bought. A single call option contract to buy the S&P at 2% higher, expiry Nov 16. If I am wrong, I will be out a few hundred bucks.

I have lost enough money with my recent purchases, and this is all the additional money that I am willing to throw on the bonfire. Would not win that much if I am right (doubling a few hundred bucks does not make anybody rich), but this market makes me so mad.

PS. My wife's BD is coming soon. If I win with this option, it's enough money to go to our favorite French restaurant. Maybe enough to pay for my children too. If I don't win, will have to dip into my shrinking pile to pay.

[NW-Bound]

Early today, I saw that tech stocks came back to life and the NASDAQ was green. I was able to sell one November out-of-the-money covered call contract on an ETF, and got $510 cash for that. In hindsight, should have done more than just 1 contract of course.

Went to my backyard to continue some work, and went back inside before market close to see everything in the red again. Darn!

The S&P call option I bought yesterday? It lost 40% of its value already. Darn!

So, I bought another call option, also at the strike price 2% higher than current value, expiry Jan 2019. Will see if I am going to lose this bet too.

Just playing with a few hundred bucks here and there, while the market god blew away hundreds of $K off my Quicken screen...

[LOL!]

For some reason I got really busy today doing some other things which probably saved me from buying more shares early in the day. I will try to buy something tomorrow because I like to lose money.

[LOL!]

With things up 2% to 3% this morning I'd like to be selling. Unfortunately, I don't have any profits from buying two days ago since yesterday things were down about 2%. I'm back to about even and ready for the next drop. 680

I'll be on an airplane this afternoon, so no updates later today.

[NW-Bound]

I have been back in the mode of writing out-of-the-money covered calls again, now that the market has risen for two straight days.

I will keep collecting a couple of thousands here and there. It is nowhere near enough to cancel out the total drop from the portfolio high-water mark, but that's spilt milk.

This time, if the options get assigned and I have to sell the shares, I will keep the money in cash instead of plowing it back into the market or selling put options to buy them back. I am gonna drop my stock AA down from 70%. I swear.

[LOL!]

I have been on the road for a little while, but have been receiving alerts on my phone every now and then. Yesterday, the alerts coincided with me having access to the internet, so I bought shares of MTUM just before the market close because I already own it and it had dropped about 3.8%.
787

[NW-Bound]

I just bought back 15 contracts on various individual stocks/ETFs, with expiry of 11/16. They are down to the pennies now, and I would get a few hundred bucks more by waiting till then, but it's not worth it. So, I bought back to close them out, and wait to sell them again at different strike prices, most likely lower.

Netted around $2K on these contracts. Minuscule compared to the drop of the portfolio value (not even 1% of the loss), but still a $2K gain compared to doing nothing. Still have two dozen contracts out, all hopelessly out-of-the-money, but the prices are not in the pennies yet.

[LOL!]

With the nice gains today in MTUM, I am going to sell have sold all the shares bought yesterday. 870

[NW-Bound]

Wow, you are really a day trader.

As often said here, I mainly sell covered call options or cash-covered puts on positions that I already have. And I sell options 1 month out, which means my holding period is usually 1 month for the options, and nearly forever for the shares themselves.

With the market going as crazy as it has been, I have been buying back options as soon as a week after I sell them, in order to book the gains. But holding for only 1 day? I am not there yet.

[LOL!]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Wow, you are really a day trader.

Historically I think the current volatility means that the general trend will be down until there is capitulation.

So when there is a mini-gain after a drop like yesterday, then I am happy to make a few thousand dollars in a tax-advantaged account. I rationalize it so: My bond fund made 2.5% to 3% in a few hours and bond funds are not supposed to do that. Of course, the rationalization is wrong because I was invested in a risky asset for those few hours.

I cannot tell if yesterday was a sign of capitulation either, so if things keep going up from here, then I don't feel like my bond fund allocation needs any more 3% gains in a day.

[NW-Bound]

Last post on this thread was more than 1 month ago.

Since then, I have made many option trades, mainly selling out-of-the-money covered call options. This market is so crazy, I would sell the options on an up-market day, then buy them back cheaper on a down-market day. Rinse and repeat every week or two. Earlier in the year, I would wait for the options to expire worthless, but with this crazy market I would take smaller profits earlier, and try to make it up in volume.

And at this point, I am only $300 from the projected number of a six-figure income from call premiums. There's still another month in the year.

Don't get me wrong. I am still in the red for the year, due to international stocks, semiconductor and energy stocks. I just lost $100K less by selling options.

And with the market no longer in the bullish mode, I have been selling options on nearly every position that I have, not just the more volatile biotech, EM, and semiconductor holdings.