LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

RetiredAtThirty-eight said:
What will boost the market sooner than a cure for COVID-19 is the wide availability of a cost-effective quick test for COVID-19. This will allow people to get back to work, start traveling again, etc. It will also eventually help snuff out this epidemic.
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No amount of testing is going to get me on an airplane.
 
After having many covered calls expiring worthless on 3/20, I sat around to let the market bounce up a bit before selling options again. I started selling out-of-the-money covered calls again last Thu, Friday, and today Monday 3/30.
 
RetiredAtThirty-eight said:
I'm curious, why not? I don't like airplanes either but if everyone on board has tested negative in the terminal and the plane has been disinfected between every flight, what is the risk? :confused:
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Wouldn't believe it. Unless there is a vaccine or I have gotten it and am immune, no thank you.
 
When this morning's increase in the stock market due to something about oil started to look like it would fade, I sold shares of SPTM (Total US Stock Market) and bought SPAB (Total US Bond Market). SPTM has dropped about a 1% since I sold it so far. I suppose it could go back up eventually though. 623

Update: SPTM closed UP about 1% from where I sold those shares. I should have bought when I first posted the above and had a 2% gain. :)
 
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LOL! said:
I sold shares of a small cap index ETF SPSM a moment ago and bought Total US Bond Index shares. I had set a limit order that I did not intend to get filled, but here in the last few minutes things went wild. SPSM shares are now trading lower than the spike. I don't know what's going on, but I'm not complaining at the moment.
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SPSM shares are now selling for 11% below where I sold them.
 
NW-Bound said:
After having many covered calls expiring worthless on 3/20, I sat around to let the market bounce up a bit before selling options again. I started selling out-of-the-money covered calls again last Thu, Friday, and today Monday 3/30.
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I spent most of the morning buying back many covered call contracts on my shares with expiry 4/9. Then, sell new ones with expiry 4/17, and at lower strike prices than the previous prices, but still quite a bit above current prices.

Net $12.7K for trades opened in less than 1 week ago. Small change compared to what I lost on the stocks, but I lost $12.7K less than not doing anything.
 
NW-Bound said:
..., but I lost $12.7K less than not doing anything.
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$12K here, $12K there and pretty soon you are talking about real money!

It does seem psychologically beneficial though to be chipping away at losses rather than just staring at them.

I don't think I will get back to my portfolio value of mid-February for at least another 5 years if I live that long. I'm just resigned to that. But I am sure that I won't have to go back to work, so that's a positive.
 
I placed a couple of small limit orders on dividend-paying stocks, about $1 under the current trading level. ABBV, O, CSCO and NVS. Give them a week then take a look.
 
LOL! said:
$12K here, $12K there and pretty soon you are talking about real money!

It does seem psychologically beneficial though to be chipping away at losses rather than just staring at them.

I don't think I will get back to my portfolio value of mid-February for at least another 5 years if I live that long. I'm just resigned to that. But I am sure that I won't have to go back to work, so that's a positive.
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Quicken makes it very easy to see how much I have made on selling options. Since Jan 1st, I have made $75.7K, compared to $111.8K for the entire 2019. It does not make me happy, because I am still down many times that amount on my stocks.

I have become a lot more active with selling call options when the market surges, then buying them back when the market drops. In a bull market, the option selling only made money for me once a month, when I had to wait for the options to expire worthless. Now, it's a couple of round trips each month. In addition, I now write options on nearly all the stocks that I hold, not just the most volatile ones. People are desperate and sell everything, including utilities and consumer staples stocks.

Again, the money gained is just a fraction of the loss, and simply eases the pain. I will need to stay active to recoup the lost money. It will still take a few years of gains from option trading like I have had the last 2 months.
 
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It's a great day in the equities markets today, but despite the 4% to 6% price increases, shares are not selling for more than I sold them at in the past week. That's mostly because Friday was such a bad day.

OTOH, I sure wish I had bought on Friday, so that I could be selling today. 217
 
With some bond ETF dividends paid today, I started buying shares again here late in the afternoon. Mostly I am just making the portfolio "look nice" by buying shares to round-up positions to the nearest thousand shares. Otherwise there is no rhyme or reason for my purchases: some bond ETFs, some US ETFs, some foreign ETFs. 395
 
672 Since I bought crap ton of IJS (US small-cap value) on 4/7 and it is up about 10% since, I decided to sell a similar dollar amount of SPSM (US small-cap index) today as things started to fade.

Of course, I don't know what will happen in the next hour, but I'll be happy to report back.

Update: So SPSM went back up after I sold. That is, I should have sold later or not at all.
 
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Even though stocks are up nicely today, yesterday's drop was pretty big, too, so that the SPSM that I sold last Thursday is still trading today below the price I sold it at. 081

This makes me a bit suspicious about the near term direction of the stock market. I am stuck between greed and fear. That means I want to make some transactions, but I just don't have the guts to do so.
 
Sold the entire crap ton of IJS I bought a few days ago at the market open today for a nice profit. 215 I have no plans for the money right now which is unusual for me. I have half a mind to sell all equity shares that I have bought since March 16 that are all still in the black.
 
Looks like the Gilead news is going to make my recent sells backfire. Fortunately IJS has dropped more than 3% since I sold, so the pop tomorrow may not be so bad.
 
OK, I got lucky as I thought my last sells on 4/15 were going to get away with everything going up, but today everything I sold is trading at a lower price than what I sold for. That makes me happy, but I doubt it makes you happy. Otherwise, no new trades to report. 726
 
First Post in This Thread

I’m not usually a bettor, unless I’m at a BJ or Craps table in LV with $100-$200 to lose or double. :cool: So, this is my first time posting in this thread.

About 5 wks ago, I bet on the S&P500; I used about 5% of my investable portfolio (tax advantaged accounts) to buy SPXL, a 3X leveraged fund. Now, I’m watching to decide when to sell...which I expect to be in quite a while. But, I must admit that it makes me more interested in the market on a daily/weekly basis.

OK, got that out of my system! :LOL:
 
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And at yesterday's close, I could have still bought everything at a lower price than I sold at, but with today's pop it looks like I missed out. :(

[Update: Today's pop has turned out to be dud at midday, but still time to go either way.]
 
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My portfolio is enjoying the increase in stock prices, but it would have enjoyed it more if I had not sold anything recently or if I had bought things back after their intervening drop. No transactions to report. 327
 
Whenever I see two different US equity asset classes diverge in the same day, then my spidey senses start tingling. Today, small-cap value ETFs are up about 3% while large-cap momentum ETFs are down about 0.4%. So I'd like to sell some US small-cap value and buy some MTUM.

So I'm submitting orders to do just that. I have to use 2 accounts including a mutual fund account, so that transaction will happen at the market close. 460

This may be just a case of moving deckchairs around.
 
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TBT: Here is post #1975 from Feb 21 (market top?) in the newsletter (https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f44/lol-s-market-timing-newsletter-57042-99.html#post2374077)

LOL! said:
I don't see stock markets going up in any significant amount until the coronavirus thing has more clarity. In the meantime there will be quite a bit of downward pressure. I may have to rebalance from bonds into equities if stock markets drop violently, but as long as it is a slow drip-drip-drip downward, then I won't be buying equities nor rebalancing.
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Not gonna lie: Yesterday's trade should have not been done since small-cap value is up now 4.2% and MTUM is up only 2.35%.

Fortunately, the portfolio still has a bunch of small-cap value index fund. Of course, the portfolio has a bunch of equities as per my asset allocation.
 
I bought a lot (for me) of ETF XLV a few weeks ago. I haven't checked today but it should be up $0.05 or more. It holds Gilead, Eli Lilly and Abbvie, among others. :dance:

This is the beginning of finding treatments for Covid19.

Pharma as a market segment has stunk for years. The next year will be their time in the sun.

Years ago I did an HR audit of a firm in the industry. Lots to PhDs on the payroll making modest wages given their smarts and education. I mentioned that to my DIL, she observed that people don't go into that field for $$$, it is their passion.
 
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