Exhaustion

Quick note.

Earlier this year I decided to develop a custom Options back-testing platform. There were several reasons for it, all of which were detailed in "The Struggle is Real".

The Joy

I was talking to somebody the other day when suddenly the topic of "how long will I be doing this" popped up. I hadn't thought too much about it, but, he was right. How much longer will I be writing on this site? How much longer will I be under the self-imposed commitment of showing all my positions; writing up weekend analysis; participating in the comments sections; actively replying to every single email received in private from readers of the site, etc?

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (September 24, 2016)

To my long term investments, the mantra is "why isn't every day 'Fed day'?". For the 43248th time, stocks rally on Fed day. So, yeah, markets are perfectly random (mischievous face). The markets closed the week up 5.91% for the year and we are almost done with the two worst historical months now (Aug, Sep).

November RUT Unbalanced Iron Condor

Initiated Nov $RUT 1110/1120/1340/1350 Unbalanced Iron Condor position. 0.65 credit from Put side, 0.95 from Call side.

— The Lazy Trader (@lazytrading) September 23, 2016

Warned

I vividly remember this same time four years ago. Romney was seen as the guy that would benefit the markets. The Pro-business candidate, willing to let capitalism work; willing to lower corporate taxes; resolute to nuke 'Obamacare' as a terrible policy that would only hurt small businesses. Obama was seen as, well, more of the same, but not really as business-friendly as the other candidate. Certainly not the "markets' candidate of choice".

And what happened?

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (September 17, 2016)

SPX from 2120.86 to 2139.16 for a +0.86% week. The index is now up 4.66% year to date.

I must say this was an interesting week, and here's why:

The Lie

For investors, there is no doubt that putting money in several business, as opposed to just one, reduces risk. It "diversifies" you. And, while we're at it....let's just buy an index, guaranteeing total diversification and risk reduction instantly, as suggested by our friends Jack Bogle and Warren Buffet. 

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (September 10, 2016)

Stairs up and elevator down. We can sum it up that way. Up slow, down fast. Like an old man's...ehem,..."stamina". Friday's price action ended exactly at the low of the day, and it was a huge bar. Lower prices will come. But before we get to excited, remember that recoveries have been vicious, violent V shapes in the last, well, two or three years. So, careful selling Calls too aggressively.

Options Trading Monthly Digest (August 2016)

Well, the time has come once again to go over the Options Trading performance for the most recent month: August 2016.

The goal of these articles is to recap and determine what went wrong, what went well, mistakes that were made, things that could have been done better.

Although the main focus is the long term viability of our strategies and not the month to month seesaws, hopefully these monthly updates will provide confidence and serve as an authentic guide of what can be achieved with a realistic and sustainable approach to the business of Selling Options.

October SPX Lazy Elephant

Today I initiated an SPX Lazy Elephant position as follows:

Buy 10 SPX October 2005 Put (6.20 debit)
Sell 10 SPX October 2015 Put (6.85 credit)
Sell 10 SPX October 2255 Call (2.60 credit)
Buy 12 SPX October 2265 Call (1.75 debit)
Buy 1  SPY October 206 Put (1.10 debit)

Weekend Portfolio Analysis (September 4, 2016)

Writing to you today from the city of Naples, Florida.
And let me tell you folks, there is absolutely nothing to do in Naples! Except, perhaps, writing up articles for the-lazy-trader.com. Moooving on!

ETF Rotation systems - ranking evaluation with Excel

With this Excel spreadsheet you can quickly rank the instruments of your ETF Rotation System at the end of each month. This simple tool can save you some money that would otherwise be spent as recurring membership costs out there, simply for the privilege of determining the go-to instruments for the upcoming month in your Momentum based ETF Rotation Portfolio.