Last week I talked about the idea that some sort of break out, or
sell-off should be approaching and we kind of had that: new all-time
highs. Now the situation is a little stretched and different: we're
close to the upper end of the channel and I think upside is a bit more
limited now.
CHRISTMAS PROMOTION
LTOptions at a 33% discount during the Year End Holidays.
Tell me More
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 21, 2017)
This week's analysis has been published at LTOptions.com
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-21).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Related Article: Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 14, 2017)
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-21).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Related Article: Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 14, 2017)
Only 2.17 SPX points from open to close in the shortened week of trading that just concluded, with the VIX still extremely low. Boring is good for riding out existing positions, but dangerous for the option seller when deploying new positions.
Friday, January 20, 2017
March SPX Unbalanced Iron Condor
Today I initiated a March 2017 Unbalanced Iron Condor in SPX:
Trade details:
BUY 20 March SPX 2090 Put @8.00
SELL 20 March SPX 2100 Put @8.60
SELL 10 March SPX 2360 Call @4.14
BUY 10 March SPX 2370 Call @3.24
Total Credit received: $2,100 (0.90 from Calls * 10 + 0.60 from Puts * 20)
Days to expiration: 56
Trade details:
BUY 20 March SPX 2090 Put @8.00
SELL 20 March SPX 2100 Put @8.60
SELL 10 March SPX 2360 Call @4.14
BUY 10 March SPX 2370 Call @3.24
Total Credit received: $2,100 (0.90 from Calls * 10 + 0.60 from Puts * 20)
Days to expiration: 56
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Trading Competition: The End
Along with 4 other traders/bloggers, I joined a friendly trading competition in the year 2016. These are guys who do not camouflage their returns, who share their trades publicly and who do not scam naive investors selling them garbage. There was no monetary prize for the winner. It was all for fun and to do something different.
Well, time for the final update:
Well, time for the final update:
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 14, 2017)
This week's analysis has been published at LTOptions.com
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-14).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Related Article: Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 7, 2017)
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-14).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Related Article: Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 7, 2017)
During the "Trump rally" I argued that the indexes had gone too far above their main moving averages. As dumb as it looked to say anything different from "we're going to the moon", the reality is that indexes such as the SPX can rarely stay 4% higher than its 50-day moving average for weeks. 3.5% higher than its 50-day starts to become a stretch. The Russell can overshoot a little bit more than SPX. It is after all a different animal. 6% - 8% higher than its 50-day average does happen in RUT. But also, not sustainable in the long run. We haven't had a market decline, but the sudden rally of December has stalled and it is being digested, for now via time at least. Both RUT and SPX are now much closer to their main moving averages. The two Credit Call spread positions of the January expiration cycle are winning trades by now and should expire this upcoming Friday without hassle of any sort, as psychologically hard as it was to put them on during the Trump rally.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Invest and Retire before you Die - two years later
In the Invest and Retire before you Die series I came up with a basic, dividend growth oriented portfolio of Canadian stocks that I thought would do well in the long run with minimal supervision. I myself hold all those ten companies (including Canadian National Railway) in my own account, plus a few other companies as of this writing (FTS.TO, GWO.TO, RY.TO) as disclosed in my recent Investing - 2016 Results article.
But, leaving my own account aside, I want to revisit just the ten companies profiled in the original Invest and Retire before you Die series and see how a hypothetical portfolio made up of just those ten companies would have done in 2014 and 2015. So, let's dive into it.
But, leaving my own account aside, I want to revisit just the ten companies profiled in the original Invest and Retire before you Die series and see how a hypothetical portfolio made up of just those ten companies would have done in 2014 and 2015. So, let's dive into it.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Investing - 2016 Results
As much as I've criticized passive index investing in the past, mainly because of the "blind trust dogma" status it has achieved and apparently absent concerns about valuations, I do recognize that there is an inherent upside bias in the markets that can be taken advantage of to improve our future financial picture.
As my savings started to grow, I suddenly found myself feeling a little uncomfortable putting all my capital in the hands of Forex automated trend following systems. That's when I started to get deep into Options (Yep, I was primarily an FX trader back in the day).
As my savings started to grow, I suddenly found myself feeling a little uncomfortable putting all my capital in the hands of Forex automated trend following systems. That's when I started to get deep into Options (Yep, I was primarily an FX trader back in the day).
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Weekend Portfolio Analysis (January 7, 2017)
This week's analysis has been published at LTOptions.com
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-07).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Download Weekend Portfolio Analysis (2017-01-07).pdf
If the above link doesn't work for you, simply log in to LTOptions.com, navigate to the "Weekly Analysis" tab and download the document from there.
The Weekend Portfolio Analysis will be available on this site next week for historical reference.
All currently open positions can be seen on the Track Record page
Welcome to the first Weekend Portfolio Analysis of 2017.
S&P 500 up 1.7% the first week of the year. It seems like the entire universe "knows for sure" we are going up indefinitely with Trump as president. Thus, the volatility in the main indexes is reaching low levels not seen since my grandma was a virgin. It is this type of environment (which honestly, we've had too much of in the last few years) where the index options seller must be especially careful and lower his return expectations before assuming unreasonable risks.
S&P 500 up 1.7% the first week of the year. It seems like the entire universe "knows for sure" we are going up indefinitely with Trump as president. Thus, the volatility in the main indexes is reaching low levels not seen since my grandma was a virgin. It is this type of environment (which honestly, we've had too much of in the last few years) where the index options seller must be especially careful and lower his return expectations before assuming unreasonable risks.
Friday, January 6, 2017
February 2017 SPX Unbalanced Elephant
Trade Details:
20 SPX 2125/2115 Credit Put spreads 0.55 Credit ($1100)
8 SPX 2350/2360 Credit Call spreads 0.90 Credit ($720)
plus
2/12 SPY 216/236 Unbalanced Long Strangle (.77 debit for the 216 Put, .31 debit for the 236 Calls. $526 total debit)
Net Credit: $1294
Days to Expiration: 42
20 SPX 2125/2115 Credit Put spreads 0.55 Credit ($1100)
8 SPX 2350/2360 Credit Call spreads 0.90 Credit ($720)
plus
2/12 SPY 216/236 Unbalanced Long Strangle (.77 debit for the 216 Put, .31 debit for the 236 Calls. $526 total debit)
Net Credit: $1294
Days to Expiration: 42
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Automated Forex Strategies - 2016 Results
Just like I did last year, and the year before in this article I'll detail the results of several Automated Forex strategies that have been discussed on this site in the past. The results in both 2014 and 2015 were pretty good. These are 100% automated strategies where the only effort the trader needs to make is ensure his trading platform is open and the robots are on. That's the easy part. The hardest part: to not get involved at all and let the algorithms do its thing.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
ETF Momentum Rotation Systems - 2016 Results
In the ETF Rotation Systems to Beat the Markets series, written more than two years ago, we discussed the idea behind this dynamic, and yet fairly laid back way of investing, which evidence suggests is superior to simply following an index (Mebane Faber's work, back-testing some of these principles over a century of data is a good starting point). Now that 2016 is in the rear-view mirror, I thought it was a good time to see how these systems performed last year. I went ahead and bought a one-month membership over at ETFReplay.com to run the tests just as I did in 2015 and show you the results. If you want to check out last year results you can read this article.
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