Investing General Discussion

Captain Suave said:

Markets up almost three percent, zero activity here, lol. The last few years have us all so jaded.

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Probably a decent contrarian signal.

Looking at end of third quarter numbers really making me question my passive index portfolio. I so out perform the market in a down tape it just kills me looking at that money. It was a good emotional hedge for me in the first decade of trading and now at the end of the second decade it feels like a weight.

Hard thing for me to accept being such a believer in passive index investing being the go to choice for people. I think despite it hurting me overall I'll probably leave things as they are for no other reason than it's initial reason, which is insurance. It protects some wealth from me making a very big mistake. I don't think that would happen at this point, I control risk at the core of my process but it can be some stress relief to know all our assets are not riding on my performance.

But looking at trading portfolio so nicely green YTD while the passive account sits down (~24%) certainly hurts.

Lightning Lord Rule said:

Would it be too invasive of an ask for you to post your trades for the YTD so we can get a better insight to the moves you're making? Not with amounts but with just %'s maybe to keep it more private?

Or would that be a useless thing for analysis purposes because we'd be missing the context of each trade and the thought that went into it?


I know you post most of what you do here for people to look at but I'm still curious. Not because I am way down for the year (not realized though), nothing at all to do with that, huh uh

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Sure, I'd imagine 90% of them already posted. I try to post what I'm doing most weeks. I'll put the list together

Some trades may be confusing because selling options means I'm shorting the position ie profitable means entry higher than exit rather than the other way around.


January Trades -
Best Trades - MPC and QQQ 315 put
Worst Trades - Took losses on PYPL and DKNG decent sized

I ended up just in the red for January due to the size of the paypal loss. Selling calls that go over the strike can be a little confusing, in this case I showed the loss on the call which I actually bought back and then sold the equity. Overall the loss on the call is a reduction in the profit of the equity trade if that makes sense. Will look like I have more loss trades than I really do when they are just stock being called, often times with that being my intention.



February Trades
Best Trades - MPC, SPY
Worst Trades - AMZN, MTTR

In Feb I continued to be aggressive selling calls exited the last tech positions and began trading index heavier. Feb was Green and put me just over break even YTD




March Trades - I made the decision to get out of individual names and did this mostly selling near calls at strikes I hoped would hit. Here you see the calls as red and the equity trades green as I exit those positions. Was a tough month but the QQQ trade put me solid in the green for the month despite a pretty ouchy spy loss

Best Trades - Huge QQQ win 322.50 to 346
Worst Trades - Horrible SPY loss post Fed breakdown


April Trades
Other than maybe 2-3 individual names are exited by the end of April. SPY and QQQ entries at bottom are actually not trades but dividend receipts why they show blank.
Best Trades - MPC yet again and for the third time I hurt myself using calls but I like doing this it forces me to take the sale even though I lost potential gains with how aggressive it was moving.
Worst Trades - Nothing of note just SPY loss dumping out of $447 put



Summer Trades -
I did next to nothing other than ride QQQ on the bounce.



September Trades
September is the first month of the entire year I could actually trade more like normal. Pretty much nothing but selling puts week after week. Tried QQQ a couple times and didn't like the setup.

Options may not seem like much at a $1-2 but x100 x20 contracts x10 a month and it can add up quickly. Other than September this would certainly not be indicative of a normal year for me. Was very distracted most of the time. 2021 was 200+ trades 2020 was 300+. Sept was a little below that pace because of not trading any individual names keeps rather simple having a bunch of QQQ contracts instead of 8-10 different names and brings trade count down a lot.

...edit counted 9 losing trades this year excluding being called. Given the Nasdaq is down 30% that's not too bad in a market up year it would probably be a few less. The overwhelming majority of options I write expire worthless or bought back for pennies.