LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

So like a broken record, so far today CAT is up
up_g.gif
1.54%

My thinking on CAT is, it's not really doing well and oil downturn has put lots of equipment on the secondary market, plus commodity prices didn't come back up so mining has been suffering a lot.
This all means lots of equipment available, which makes selling new equipment difficult.

I think the big pop in CAT price has been dividend chasers, since Fed dashed hopes of rate increases again is when it started to really climb. Plus with oil going up people mistakenly think demand will rise, but really it will only slow down or prevent bankruptcies.

I think it will drop again, as it's earnings per share don't even match up to the dividend and have been on a decline for past couple of years.

I'll stop boring folks with my CAT saga until the option expiry time and we will see how it turned out.
 
If your shares get called, you can always sell puts to buy them back if the stock price drops. You could end up having the same shares back, plus the premium of both the covered calls and cash-secure puts in your pocket.

I love squeezing more money out of my shares this way. With the prospect of ho-hum market return, any little bit I can get is extra income. An ETF I wrote a covered call on is about to reach the strike price. This option will expire in July, and it may get exercised. I just sold a put to buy it back lower than the current price.
 
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Just sold some covered calls on a Chinese ETF, and also covered puts on the S&P. Both are out-of-the-money, so will see if they will expire worthless in a month.

Net cash gained is only $900, but I have been like a bird picking up a little crumb here and there. ;)

At least, that covers my airfare to Europe, plus a bit of change. Will work on the wife's ticket next. :)

PS. It's not that I need these little gains to travel, but I like to think of the rewards for my trading activity this way. Instant gratification, ya know?
 
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It looks like I might get a "do over" today with equity prices about the same as they were on Monday 6/6. I might have to submit some orders, but which ones?
 
I bought some international ETFs: VEU, VEA, DGS. The main reasons were that

1. They were down about 1.3% to 1.5% from yesterday.

2. The prices were at about the lows for Monday, so I could get Monday's lowest prices today.

3. I could buy round-lots in a Roth IRA. I like lots of trailing zeroes in my positions for some reason.

4. I needed international to replace the VSS I sold in the last week and VSS had not dropped as much today as VEU and VEA, so I didn't want to buy it.

OK, most of the "reasons" are not anything important, but they were what I was thinking when I submitted the orders.
 
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It looks like I should have waited at least one more day to buy things.

Update: So yesterday's buys were an example of worst market timing ever. In order to get out of this hole, I will have to double up on my buys at some point, but not today.
 
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OK, I lied. I ended up buying VEU today at the close.

I had reviewed my situation and discovered that my trades since 6/3 combined with the drops of today actually put me ahead of where I would have been if I had not made the trades since 6/3. That is, I would have lost even more money than I actually did if I had not made the trades on 6/3 and later.

So I fooled myself into thinking I knew what I was doing and broke a rule not to buy on a bad Friday. Wish me luck!
 
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More time to catch a falling knife today, so I bought more VEU a moment ago.
 
LOL,

When you say you bought “some” and then buy “more” what is that in relation to your total portfolio size? if “some” = "portfolio value times x % of portfolio" is “more” greater or lesser than “some”? Are you doing this on a strict valuation percentages or is it a random percentage based on the decline in a given sector and your level of spunkiness on a given day?
 
It varies, but I'm usually working with 2% to 4% of total portfolio value. For any given trade, the percentage is probably random as I am not going on strict percentages, but more by what is available in a given account.

I am intentionally vague, but so far this year, I have buys that total more than $3.6 million and sells that total more than $3.6 million.
 
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And my recent purchases are getting killed. VEA and VEU are down 6.8% and 6.4% since the first June purchase.

At least the June dividends will get invested at lower prices.
 
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Sold my open long dated 90 strike on AAPL at a 10% gain.

Everything else is headed down back toward the trading range that we've been in ...for the past 2 years.
 
LOL! said:
And my recent purchases are getting killed. VEA and VEU are down 6.8% and 6.4% since the first June purchase.
Click to expand...
Today is going to be a spectacular day. I don't think I will get back to my purchase prices, but I think I will still be feeling good when the market closes.

Some things like VSS were already up more than 2% from their lows last week.

Today is also the Payable Date for most of the Vanguard ETFs I own, so I will be be making some decisions. I am now underweighted in bonds, so I should probably be buying some BND or AGG if they drop. I am overweighted in foreign, so I may need to start selling some if VEU or VEA go up enough.
 
So I did buy more AGG this morning.
 
I've been trying to decide if my trades since the beginning of June have done my portfolio any good. I conclude that I was just a few days early, but I still did better than not doing the trades.

Bond funds have returned to about the place where I sold them and even though I have lost a little bit of money from yesterday's buy of AGG (early again!), the VEU and VEA that I bought earlier in the month have turned nicely positive.

VEU and VEA paid dividends which have to be included in this month's returns (Current prices reflect the price drop from paying the dividends).

Of course, Brexit could kill off all the gains and more.
 
One more thing, I've noticed that VSS is kind of lagging what I think it should be doing. VSS is a small-cap foreign index fund that includes both developed and emerging markets stocks. I think it should track what large-cap foreign stocks do and what small-cap emerging markets stocks do. That is, the daily movement of VSS should not be too different than the daily movement of VEU and DGS.

But look at today's current changes:
1.33% VEU
1.22% DGS
0.63% VSS

So VSS lags by 0.6% to 0.7%. I think VSS will "catch up" or the others (VEU, DGS) will "lag down" over the next day or so to get things more in sync.

Update: DGS did go ex-dividend yesterday. VEU and VSS had payable dates yesterday.
 
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Today was the spectacular day for VEU, VEA, VSS, and DGS that I was [-]expecting[/-] hoping for the other day. Right now, I am glad that I got June's dividends all reinvested in the past week or so.

Portfolio value reached a high for 2016 ... even higher than on June 8.

I don't know the results of the Brexit vote yet, so there is still a chance that tomorrow will not be nice.
 
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Futures look pretty negative for tomorrow with both FTSE and DAX down 8%, so that's "not nice."
 
Watching the Bloomberg Hong Kong reporters report the events of the evening has been most entertaining. It will be an interesting day in European and America markets.
 
Japan Finance Minister said nervous moves in FX markets will be met by double secret probation by the central bank of Japan.
 
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It will be interesting tomorrow to see if ETF again trade beneath their asset values in a panic.
 
I have $10k to $40k I need to move into some stock index funds. Probably VG Total Stock Market. This might be the week to do so. So if I understand correctly, I can place an order for the ETF and get the immediate price as opposed to buying the funds and getting the price at the end of the day . Is that correct?

Sent from my KFTHWA using Tapatalk HD
 
Debinnov a said:
I have $10k to $40k I need to move into some stock index funds. Probably VG Total Stock Market. This might be the week to do so. So if I understand correctly, I can place an order for the ETF and get the immediate price as opposed to buying the funds and getting the price at the end of the day . Is that correct?

Sent from my KFTHWA using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...

Yes, they trade just like a stock. Be SURE to put in a "limit" order so you get the price you want or lower.
 
Once again it looks like I will buy on a Friday big drop. I have not submitted the order yet, but I intend to exchange a six-figure amount VBTLX to VTIAX today unless you can talk me out of it.

If Monday is a nice dead-cat bounce, I will undo the trade by selling VEA in another account. If Monday drops more, then I will probably double-down and buy more VTIAX. I present these thoughts just to make sure I go through with it.
 
This is a minor move at this point, don’t understand the urge to jump in certainly there is no panic in the air.
 
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