Investing General Discussion

Lightning Lord Rule said:

Man, that 27% is a humbling number for me, granted I'm in the same boat as TMac where I didn't jump in to the market until later in the year.

Still, the only 2 stocks I have even close to that number are ABBV (bought on that OCT dip), and STAG which is just a dependable workhorse (knock on wood, turn around three times). My other dependables are FSKAX which is ~12% since June, along with FTEC (bought on the OCT dip as well). Everything else has been up and down, mostly down since the Sept-Oct drop in the market. Not that I'm losing hope, I'm holding everything unless I get stopped out, but comparing the opportunity cost is a bit annoying.

If that 27% is a new kind of standard, it's tough to beat for noobs like me looking at buy and hold strats. So far.

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It's not the standard. Lifetime average for the S&P500 with dividend reinvestment is just about 9.75%. But it can also have these huge blowout years and of course it has been down in some years. Honestly it is hard to beat the index "consistently". I don't believe a single fund has beaten it 10 years in a row. Most csnt beat it 3 or 4 years in a row.

I think the drag from PYPL is probably going be enough to make sure I don't beat the SPY this year.

This is also why I suggest to everyone (myself included) to build your portfolio around a chunk of ETF. In my case it is close to 40% FTEC.

Lightning Lord Rule said:

Heard.

I think my next buys will be more index funds when we get a minor dip again. I see lots of chatter that a very large dip is coming soon, so I set trailing stops of 9-12% on most of my stuff. Personally I think anything like that is a few months out at least, but who knows. Some catalyst in world events could be the trigger, or it could just be pure incompetence from the fed/the gov that eventually breaks the camel's back.

Or it could be til May, like in Blazin's analysis from a few months back of historic price trends in the S&P.

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Take a look at a 2 or 3 year chart of the indexes you like (SPY, QQQ, FTEC etc) and look at the 50, 100 and 200 day moving averages. Odds are they won't hit the 200, but the 100 is almost always a solid entry point or point to add money. The 50 is a bit light. I like the 100 and I add more if it drops to the 200.

Blazin said:

Soon as Fidelity updates to month end I'll post my numbers for the year. Years like this (and like 2017) are extremely hard to beat the index, much harder than in 2020. Traders need volatility to gain alpha grinds higher with non stop rotation propping index, the index is going to almost always win. I played the few and little declines we got this year very well so I might have passed the index in trading account, I think it's very close. Where I know I'll make the index my bitch is a S&P up less than 5% or even better down year.

I still rarely think about %'s with trading, I try to make another $100k (mostly options premium) or so a year with as little exposure as possible picking my spots and making money in short bursts, knowing I have the index investing helps with psychology of FOMO as I simply don't have that, as I'm always participating, so if I don't see a good set up it's fine to just sit on my hands.

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I actually judge myself on did I make less mistakes this year than last. My portfolio is mostly set (80% of it is locked into long term holds). I don't have the time with work to be a fulltime trader so I my expectation isn't to beat the indexes every year. If I can be respectable while cutting out mistakes and increasing my knowledge then I am happy.

I can ask myself am I a better investor today than I was after the market closed 12/31 last year and the answer is yes. I feel my options play has greatly improved. I had less than a half dozen option trades I didn't make money on for the year.

Aside from PYPL (which I dont categorize as a total dog because I was up bigly in it before it turned south), my poorest performers were BABA and SPIR. Both of these I had made money on and then went back to the well with the profits I made. BABA I cut bait on and SPIR I am holding for the long haul to see if It can take off. They have a model and a moat, they just need to execute and grow revenue.

I had some other dogs but was quick to realize my mistake and cut bait with either no losses or minimal gains. Examples include PTON and DNUT.

Surprise winners this year were HD (+60% since I acquired in Feb) which exceeded all my expectations, ABT +30% since June, UNH (jumping back in after I sold) +28% since Sept, and UNP +20% since Sept.

I did a dump and switch back in Dec/January where I dumped all my QQQ and SPYG to get rid of GOOG/TWTR and moved into FTEC in Feb. That was a 32% gain on FTEC after i grabbed it.

Overall I am very conservative on my options plays and tend to write way out of the money puts or covered calls. Overall, my options premiums ended up adding about 4% to my overall profits for the year. Not sexy, but it allowed my cash position to contribute to my returns instead of sitting dead.

This will make everyone feel better. There are hedge funds run by professionals that get PAID to put out returns worse than we did. Three on the list beat the SP500.

Hateyou said:

I don’t feel bad about underperforming the s&p. I still gained 20%. I barely did any trading this year compared to last. Pulling a big chunk out for the basement and the shenanigans with Robin Hood and other brokers made me mostly just sit in indexes and my good dividend companies.

I’d be pissed If I had paid someone to underperform as badly as some of those, holy shit.

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Melvin Capitol is on the bottom. Remember them? GME/AMC shorts?

Lightning Lord Rule said:

good.catmeme


I'm interested in what the Senvest guys were doing... triple the index is godlike. Unless they were forced to do something awful like buy google or twitter to get there... yeeeccccchhhhhh

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They were on the opposite side the of the GME/AMC trade. They road the short squeeze I believe.